All The Complexities
by A-Spirit
Summary: The course of true love never did run smooth. Arthur and Merlin knows this all too well. Merlin/Arthur.
1. Chapter 1of4

**Title:** _All The Complexities_

**Warning: **_AU (modern), language, substance abuse, graphic imagery_

**Pairing: **_Merlin/Arthur_

**Rating: **_R_

**Inspired by: **_One Real Thing__ by Anah Crow and Dianne Fox_

**Summary: **The course of true love never did run smooth. Arthur and Merlin knows this all too well.**  
><strong>

**Author:** _Spirit_

**A/N:** Please be warned that this isn't your typical Merlin/Arthur fic. The relationship is and will be shown to be somewhat different from the usual. It isn't disturbing, just different. All I ask is that you'll give it a chance and hopefully, by the end, you'll understand it and enjoy reading the fic as I've enjoyed writing it.

* * *

><p>.<p>

.

**ALL THE COMPLEXITIES**

.

.

_I need you now_

_I'll show you how_

_You can take my hand and save me. _

_The Rock and Tide__ by Joshua Radin_

_._

_**Part One**_

.

The e-mail that came in on his Blackberry made Merlin's breath catch.

The party had started off with a shout of celebration as he watched the nominees announced for the award that would take place six months later. When Freya's name had been called in the list of five nominees for Best Actress, he had been so relieved. The grin that he couldn't hide flitted briefly across his face as his client bounded over to him with a squeal of delight.

He got the first hug, just like he got the first whispered "Thank you."

Her body felt small in his arms. '_So thin,' _he thought. He remembered a time when he had been just as thin. Slimmer really. Emaciated from living off many different drugs and the alcohol that he had used to slate hunger and thirst instead of food. He had been skin stretched thin over bones, his stomach sunken, his eyes red most days. He remembered and a part of his insides cringed at the memory.

But Arthur had been there. And Arthur had saved him.

Unlike Merlin had been, she was beautiful and elegant in her petite frame. Her gown, tailor made for her and this party, fit her like a glove. Her smile, her laughter, the way she seemed to glow with happiness, made him want to pick her up and spin her around.

"Whether I win or not," she whispered for his ear only. "Doesn't matter. You're the best PR I've ever worked with. You're heaven sent."

_'Arthur sent.'_

But that was just semantics, and Merlin shrugged off the praise.

"Of course you'll win," he whispered back. "Don't let them see you sweat."

She laughed when he winked. Took his hand. She led him to a seat at a far table, waving away shouts of "Congratulations!" and smiling for the cameras that took her picture as she glided by. Never letting go until they were safely away. He was the only one, as always, who knew just how tight her grip was, just how much her hands shook when she finally let go, just how afraid and human she was, living in the constant spotlight.

"I should call Morgana," he said with a smile. "She'll probably want to know that she'll have competition for the Ten Most Beautiful, Most Talented Women, of the Decade, article that Vanity will be doing."

Freya laughed. "Morgana models. I don't. She just has to stand still for a few seconds and photographers start running towards her. I get rejection letters almost every day that says I don't have the right face, and my voice is all wrong, and that I can't act worth for shit. Besides, Morgana is in France. Filming in Quebec is nothing like being on a runway in Paris."

Merlin reached across their table to take her hand. He remembered when he had no confidence in his abilities. When he would have turned tail and ran as far away and as fast as he could from any opportunity, sure that he was going to fail.

That made him think of Arthur again. How Arthur had picked up his tiny pieces, scattered like glass, and slowly put him back together, one insane, crazy, messed up piece at a time.

What Arthur did for him, Merlin could never forget. Arthur was never, ever, far away from his thoughts.

Even as he sat across one of the most beautiful women he knew, his fingertips itched to dial Arthur's number. To hear his voice. To tell him how he had done something good, something right.

But Arthur was so far away. Married, and living in Australia. The other end of the world. It made Merlin's stomach twist at the loss. And the miles and miles of space and land and water that separated them felt like a fist clenched around his lungs.

Freya laughed at him again.

"Merlin," she chuckled. "Tell Morgana. Tell the world. I don't mind. I'm just glad to hear they didn't just dump my reel in the nearest bin and laugh their head off at my audacity to try for 'Best' anything."

Merlin sent the e-mail to Morgana as quickly as his fingers could type. One of her closest school friends was up for a prestigious award. She would want to know.

.

_Morgana,_

_Freya is nominated for Best Actress! Found out tonight so she's celebrating. Don't worry, I'm not doing anything stupid. Don't tell Arthur please. Want to tell him myself if he'll let me. I know Sofia didn't want me to have his number after they got married. Maybe you can find a way for me to contact him?_

_Merlin_

.

Three years. That was how long ago Merlin had spoken to Arthur. Three insanely long years. Long enough for Arthur to move on with his life, not having to worry about the train wreck that was his best friend. Three years, for Merlin to spend putting his life back together the way Arthur had instructed.

Merlin had never been very good at doing the right things. If there was a sign in his life that said to go one way for happiness and prosperity, Merlin laughed, gave it one particularly adept finger and had gone in precisely the opposite direction.

But Arthur made Merlin listen.

Merlin hadn't always been like that. When he was young his parents had doted on him. His family had been the ground beneath his feet. And then his father died and his mother went away, leaving him with his uncle Gaius.

And for a time, Merlin had been happy. His life made sense again. He didn't feel like he was floating away untethered to the Earth. He had someone who was there, who would take care of him.

Until Gaius wasn't there anymore. Until he had to live with how sick his mother was.

"Merlin, your Blackberry." Freya pointed to where it laid on the table, a message flashing. "You want to get that."

Merlin did want to get it. It had only been a few weeks since he last saw Morgana, but he could already imagine her delight spanning the distance, transmitted gleefully in her response.

He was smiling when he opened the e-mail. He stopped smiling when he read it.

.

_Merlin,_

_Glad you e-mailed. Thought you knew. Arthur left Sofia three months ago. Turns out she'd been cheating on him the whole time. Arthur went to visit her last month to tell her he wanted a divorce and they got into an accident. Sofia didn't make it. Nobody's heard from Arthur since. Thought he would have told you! Thought you would know what's going on with him. I'm in the middle of a photo-shoot but was planning to fly down to Australia end of this week to find out what's going on. Gwaine didn't know much either when he rang. I'll have him ring you._

_Morgana_

.

Merlin felt his whole body go cold. He started to shake. He felt the phone slip the short distance from his fingers to clatter on the table. Felt like his insides were turning in on itself. The fist on his lungs travelled over to his heart. _'Oh god, oh god, oh god! Please. Please. Please let him be okay.'_ he silently begged.

"Merlin?"

Freya's voice broke his spiralling thoughts, and he tried to focus on her. Tried to see past the tears that clouded his eyes. Tried to stop shaking so badly it was making him dizzy. Tried to breathe, and breathe, because he had to keep breathing to think of a way to help.

"Merlin," Freya took his hand, her eyes going all sorts of worried. "Merlin what happened?"

He snatched his fingers from her grasp and grabbed the phone, typing back a quick response.

.

_Morgana,_

_Stay where you are. Finish your photo-shoot. I'll meet you in Paris. I'll find him. I'll help._

_Merlin_

.

He sucked in a breath he didn't know he was holding until the message was sent.

Then he sucked in another one to stop his mind reeling. And all the while he felt like he should be falling over. His touchstone, his rock, his Arthur, the one man who had kept him safe and sane for years and years needed him, was missing, and he hadn't known. He felt like his bones should have hurt, his heart should have bled, the world should have turned on its head.

_'How could I not know?'_ he silently screamed at himself.

"I have to go," he breathed out to Freya when he could focus on her again. "I have to go find Arthur."

She looked confused. Maybe because he had mentioned Arthur's name to her only once in the two years since she had become his client. And before that, Morgana had probably mentioned her brother only once when she explained that Merlin had been her PR courtesy of her brother but now Merlin would be Freya's PR, courtesy of Morgana.

Freya looked confused because she didn't know about all the times that Arthur had saved him.

A part of Merlin wanted to scream it all out to her so that she could understand just how much Arthur had done for him without question and without asking for anything back. But he didn't have the time to say all that.

"He's my best friend," he said instead. "He pretty much kept me sane all through high school. And then in university he kept me alive. I owe him, God, I owe him anything. Everything! And now he's all...fucked up...and missing...and I have to help him. Because he helped me all the time. And now I have to go to Australia and find him. I can't let him hurt all alone."

And somehow, those words seemed to make sense to her.

"Do you want me to come with?" she asked softly, reaching out to take his hands. "Australia is near to New Zealand where we're filming next, which is perfect. I'll go with you, make sure you find him, and then fly over to New Zealand. It's no bother."

She was being so kind. Merlin couldn't bear it. He could hardly focus, he was so frantic inside. And she was all soft words and reassurance, and he didn't have the energy to be grateful.

"No." He shook his head. "It's a long flight from Canada to Australia. I can't ask you to do that! Not tonight anyway when you're probably knackered. You need sleep and to get your mind ready for the next bout of filming. I'll be fine. You don't have to be in New Zealand for another five days. I can't make you leave early to babysit me!"

She squeezed his hands. "It's not. It's fine Merlin. I can sleep on the flight over. You're an important part of my life. I would have no career without you. But you're my friend too, right? I don't want you being alone."

Merlin was grateful, and incredibly touched. He had so few friends left that just hearing that she considered him to be a friend, made him want to hug her and cry out his fears on her shoulders. But Arthur had taught him to be strong, to stand on his own two feet again, and going to find Arthur, seemed like one of the most important times when he had to be strong enough to do something this hard alone.

"Thank you," he whispered, squeezing back. "Thank you. But...but I have to do this for him...on my own."

It was the best and only way he could explain. He willed her silently to understand. And she did, because she nodded, released his fingers, and smiled.

"Alright, but you have to e-mail or ring me," she instructed. "Tell me if you find him and if he's okay. If he's so important to you like I can see he is, I want to know."

Merlin could only nod. Could only stand. Could only grab his blackberry with one hand, pulling her across the side of the table with his other hand, to crush her into a quick hug.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "I've ruined your night. You look lovely and you deserve the nomination. Sorry my shit is getting in the way of your happiness."

And then he was leaving, fingers already searching for flights out of Quebec and into Sydney.

He found two. The first one was Quebec to New York with almost nine hours layover then nonstop to Sydney for twenty-two hours. The second one was Quebec to Chicago with a ten hour layover then nonstop from Chicago to Sydney. The New York flight left at 8:30am while the Chicago flight left at 2:45pm.

Merlin checked his watch as he jumped into his car. Eighty-thirty was seven hours away. It left only enough time to pack, rush to the airport and check in for his flight. There would be no time to sleep. But Merlin had spent days without sleep in his lifetime. One more sleepless night was hardly going to kill him. Not doing something and sitting around until the flight in the afternoon just might though.

Merlin booked the first flight as he sped along with the night traffic, one hand on the wheel and the other hand tapping away at his blackberry.

Even when he was standing outside his own front door, he still didn't feel like he could take a decent breath.

_'Not breathing till I see him again,'_ he promised himself silently.

...

Six and a half hours later Merlin sat in the airport, waiting for his flight to start boarding.

Gwaine had called him for the third time when he sat down. They had finally been able to speak at length, with Gwaine explaining what he knew about the accident. He hadn't found out until a week after the funeral. Then Arthur hadn't spoken to anyone about any of it since. Gwaine had called Morgana and told her the news. She had immediately rang Arthur with her sympathies.

It was Arthur who told them both not to tell Merlin. Arthur didn't want to disturb Merlin's new life, he had told his sister. Merlin was finally back on track and he was not going to mess it up for him. He would tell Merlin himself when he was ready. But that was almost three weeks ago, and he hadn't rang Merlin. It wasn't as if Merlin knew how to get in contact with him, not after Sofia had been so adamant that she didn't want her husband near the rat-trap of drugs and booze that Merlin had become.

Arthur hadn't listened though.

One year into their marriage, Arthur was with Merlin sobering him up and getting him a good job and a life. Merlin, had been so grateful that this time, he didn't want to mess up Arthur's life. So he stayed away, and when Arthur stopped calling he shrugged away the disgust at himself and figured that Arthur was so much better off without him anyway.

Merlin's gut cramped at the thought of Arthur being alone in his pain.

Arthur was so proud. Had grown up with a father who was wealthy and well-known. Had never wanted of anything in life except maybe more time with his parent and his half-sister. Arthur was taught to be strong and to never show weakness, and to always win and to never let anyone get the better of him.

'_That bitch,'_ Merlin thought, having to hold his breath to stop even more tears from forming. _'She couldn't just die in a corner alone. She had try to take him with her.'_

And God, how Merlin wanted to scream at that unfairness.

Merlin grew up without much of a family. When his parents were alive his father was always busy and his mother was always too tired to do anything but lie in bed. It took Merlin a long time to realize that more than exhaustion drove her to curl into a ball at the side of her bed, tears leaking silently and continuously down her cheeks. Nothing he did as a child could make his mother smile for long. If she wasn't crying, she was shouting at him to go away. And later, after his father died, after Gaius was too sick to take care of him and his mother came back, for the brief months of overlap when they all lived together, Merlin had ran himself ragged trying to make her feel like she was a good mother. When Gaius died, his mother slipped away, as if she too died. As if a corpse laid on her bed, day in and day out, feeding on anti-depressants, not hungry and always, always so damn tired she couldn't even think she said.

Arthur had grown up with a family and family was important to him. And even though it damn near killed Merlin to force back the smile, he smiled when Arthur announced he was marrying Sofia, because Arthur was happy.

Now, Arthur had no family. He had no one left. Hidden away alone on a continent at the end of the world. His whole world going to pieces and nobody was there to see the strong, beautiful, man that he was to Merlin, fall and shatter. Arthur had no one to put him together like he had put Merlin back together over and over again.

Merlin wanted to crawl to him, on hands and knees, bump Arthur's knees with his forehead, and promise that he would never, ever, leave again.

_'Please, please...'_ Merlin begged. _'Please be safe. I'm coming to fix you.'_

...

Merlin met Arthur when he was twelve years old.

He hadn't know anything about Arthur Pendragon even though he, like many, had heard the Pendragon name. So when he first saw the blond boy walking the corridors of the school with an entourage, he had chalked him up to one more rich boy who was bound to make his life unpleasant.

Merlin had not been all that wrong about the older kids, and the wealthier kids, picking on others. This wasn't boarding school, and Merlin freely ran from any altercation that would result in him being beaten and bloody. But being the new student at a prestigious school, especially since he had been accepted on merits of his father's acquaintance with the principal of the school, soon caught up with Merlin.

Merlin was in the school yard, behind one of the buildings, sitting in dirt, scrubbing a line of shoes with spit and a piece of red cloth when he first met Arthur face to face.

Arthur took in the events with an impassive expression. In fact, he hadn't joined the line of boys tormenting Merlin. He had only leaned against the side of the building, sipping a bottle of water, keen eyes following the movements of Merlin's wrist scrubbing hard at the leather shoes, one by one, until he got to the end of the row.

Knowing what was coming next, though hoping otherwise, Merlin closed his eyes, keeping his head low.

He heard, rather than saw the group of boys advance. And he heard their laughter just before he felt the sting of pebbles as they kicked at the dirt, soiling the newly cleaned boots.

"Begin again!" One of the boys commanded.

Merlin didn't have to look down at his clothes to see that he hadn't faired much better than the shoes. He was worse that filthy. Taking the bus home was going to be a real pain. If he could have, he would have tried to make an escape to the school gate, but he had done that the day before and the boys, despite evidence to the contrary, were not stupid. Two of the older boys were waiting at the gate for him.

Merlin had ducked out of the hazing for almost two weeks.

_'Third time's the charm then,'_ he thought as he shook out the cloth and began again.

Merlin hadn't seen Arthur move. Had no idea when the other boy had gone from being a sizeable distance away to standing close by. Close enough to watch, but not close enough to participate, Merlin noted, just before the cloud of dust and laughter came again.

Merlin had just enough time to save himself from choking on dirt, turning away from the shower of pebbles and dust, before the little group went quiet.

When Merlin turned back around and looked up, Arthur was standing there. He was pouring water over the line of shoes, taking care to get each shoe, but careful also not to wash the dirt away. A nice mix of dirt and water formed small rivulets of mud that slid down each. Merlin had to admire the brilliance of it even as he felt anger rise in him. Cleaning mud was not the same thing as cleaning dirt.

But Arthur hadn't meant for him to do any more cleaning. This Merlin found out once the bottle was empty. Arthur turned to the group of boys, all calm, quiet anger and spoke very softly.

"Get him to clean it again," he challenged with narrowed grey eyes. "Go on. Try me. I dare any of you to say the words."

When the boys all silently gathered up their muddy shoes and left, Merlin sat in the same place he had been sitting, a little dirtier, flecks of mud decorating the legs of his uniform pants, and a lot scared to meet the eyes of the boy who got older kids to walk away.

"Aren't you going to tell me your name?"

Merlin opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. So he closed his mouth and stared at his dirty fingers.

"I'm Arthur. I can make up a name for you if you can't bear to say yours aloud. I'm just not going to walk around whistling when I want you to come to me. Bad form, you know. Might give the wrong idea."

Merlin snickered. If the choice was between saying his name and being summoned like a puppy if he didn't, he decided the best option was to go with being polite. And even though he was still sitting on his backside in dirt at Arthur's feet, he wasn't too keen on being whistled at.

So he looked up, and up, and tried to match the smirk on the other boy's face.

"I'm Merlin," he spat out. "And I'm going home now, if you don't mind getting out of my way."

...

Merlin showed his boarding pass to the smiling flight attendant and made his way towards the plane.

Inside, the line of people before him stopped as those in front shoved their carry on in the overhead compartments. Merlin would have loved to travel first class all the way, but the flight to New York was only for little over an hour.

Merlin didn't know if it was wise to waste such a short flight on a first class ticket, but he couldn't imagine travelling the other twenty-two hours to Sydney in coach. So he had compromised. Coach first, then he was switching out his ticket during the long layover, for first class to his final destination. He had considered his options over and over as he made his way to the airport. He'd never been good with money. Never had enough of it to be good with it. And when he had it, he spent it all on getting high and getting wasted.

Arthur knew this. Arthur had helped him to set up a bank account when he got the job as Morgana's PR. Arthur had stipulated that he be paid an adequate allowance every month. It had been a relief for Merlin. He never had to worry about his money, never even had to think about it, and since Merlin was allotted only enough for food and rent and little expenses, he never worried about being extravagant. All he had to do in the beginning was to stay clean and stay sober for Arthur.

"Tell me if it's not enough," Arthur said to him, the day they stood outside of the bank with Merlin's new account info. "If you need more or you want to do something special one month, just tell me and I'll take care of it."

Merlin nodded, sure that if he had to starve one month to save for another, he would do just that. Arthur did so much for him already. He wouldn't be ungrateful and bother him any more than necessary.

But Arthur was always good at reading his mind.

"Hey," he said tilting his head to catch Merlin's gaze. "Hey, look at me."

Powerless, because Merlin could never stop looking at Arthur anyway, Merlin did as requested, biting his lower lip, ashamed that he was so damn transparent.

"If you need more, it's not a problem," Arthur reiterated. "Just ask. It's your money. I trust you with it."

Merlin wanted to cry. Wanted to shake his head and sob and ask Arthur to take it back, take back the words.

"You shouldn't," he said on a sob. "I could use it to buy something to snort. Or a bottle of tequila. I could get poppers and hide them and you wouldn't know that's what I needed more money for. You shouldn't trust me."

Arthur held his gaze steady. "I do though. You're going to be good, aren't you Merlin? You're not going to go out and buy drugs and alcohol. You've been clean for six months now, and you're not addicted to them you just wish you were because they make you forget and feel better. You've never needed them like addicts need them. So, you're going to stay clean. For me. You'll stay clean for me, won't you?"

Arthur reached out and pressed his palm to Merlin's chest. Merlin felt the heat from Arthur's fingers through his shirt. And he felt the bite of the ring that Arthur had given him, pressed into skin, branding itself against his heart.

Merlin had wanted so badly, so very badly, to do this one thing for Arthur. To have Arthur still be proud of him in another six months time. Merlin's whole body cramped with the desire to fall to his feet, cling to Arthur's legs and sob that he would try damn hard, even if it killed him.

"Merlin," Arthur said into the silence. "You'll be good, so I can trust you?"

"Yes Arthur," Merlin responded obediently.

And he bumped his nose to the side of Arthur's cheek, all needy and hating himself for craving the way Arthur's arms felt as they wrapped around him. He was all dirty and tangled up inside. Arthur shouldn't have to touch his filth. Arthur shouldn't have to be around him, helping him all the time. Most days he could help it. But some days he thought he'd happily beg Arthur for this simple connection. This simple hug. Even as he pulled away, afraid that he was contaminating Arthur with his needy, clingy, pain.

That wasn't the first time that Arthur had taken control of his money for him. When they were in school, after the day of hazing, and the month after Merlin started following Arthur around like a puppy anyway, Arthur had found out that some days, Merlin got waylaid and robbed of his daily allowance.

Merlin usually shrugged it off. It wasn't that money wasn't important to him. But money went so quickly from his grasp that he hardly ever got attached. Some days he spent it all. Some days he gave it all over to other boys who threatened violence.

"Merlin you can't not eat today!" Arthur snapped when Merlin had tried one too many times to get away with the excuse that he wasn't hungry. "You said you weren't hungry yesterday as well. I don't believe you've spent all day in class dining on education alone!"

Merlin rolled his eyes, turned away, and tried to act like it was not a big deal if he went without lunch again.

"Do you need me to lend you money?" Arthur asked gently.

Merlin's cheeks turned red.

"I'm not poor Arthur," he snapped. "I know you like to think I am, but my uncle is just fine financially, thanks. I'm not going home to bare cupboards if that's what you're thinking. I don't have your family's money but my family can afford to give me money for meals."

"Then where is this money!" Arthur challenged. "I don't see it. Is it invisible, Merlin?"

Merlin shrugged. "I had it, and now I don't anymore. End of."

"So it sprung legs and ran off?" Arthur snapped.

"No!" Merlin snapped right back. "It found a better pocket to occupy. Around ten o'clock this morning. Around ten o'clock yesterday morning as well. Right around that time on quite a lot of mornings actually. Don't make it into a thing."

"Fuck sake," Arthur breathed, exasperated. "Tomorrow morning, you find me before you go off to your first class. Give me your money. They can't take it from you if you haven't got any to give."

Merlin endured two days of some well placed punches before the guys who robbed him realized that all the hits in the world wasn't going to get him to cough up the quids. So they stopped. Possibly, it had something to do with Arthur getting suspicious on the second day and by end of day the boys were called into the Head Office over the loud speaker. Merlin didn't ask too many questions.

He showed up to the cafeteria and Arthur sat waiting, holding out food to him. Arthur always picked the food and Merlin ate it without comment or question. If there was any money left over at the end of the week, Arthur bought him a treat to take home for the weekend.

Merlin knew now that he lacked boundaries, and that this was why he had always needed to have Arthur around. When Arthur was around he could focus and follow instructions. And the chaos in his life unravelled into a clear path. Led by Arthur's voice, Arthur's gentle touch, Arthur's footsteps guiding him, Merlin felt safe.

When Arthur wasn't around, the walls fell away and darkness engulfed him.

...

Merlin shifted in his seat. Ten minutes into the flight, and already he felt like the particles that made up his body were vibrating apart. He hated flying. Had never been able to fly sober in his life.

Usually, he made sure to pick up a bottle of diphenhydramine and some valium, which he put in his carry-on and slowly fed off the entire flight. Since he couldn't have valium anymore, when he had to fly for his job, he took xanax instead. It wasn't any less addictive, but it had never been one of his recreational drugs of choice.

He hadn't the time to pack anything for this trip so he was crawling out of his skin by the first fifteen minutes. He felt like every muscle in his body was tense. The best thing he could do was to curl up into his tiny seat and close his eyes. His stomach protested the new position, and he felt his motion sickness kicking in. The xanax would have helped him to sleep, but since sleeping wasn't an option anymore, he would have to endure the short flight, tamping down the nausea.

As soon as he landed in New York he planned to buy a nice big pack of dramamine. A twenty four hour flight without drugs was not going to be an option. He just had to be careful not to take more than he should.

"Are you alright?" the lady beside him asked with evident concern.

He considered shaking his head. Considered, leaning across to her side of the divide and pointedly snagging her paper bag. He even considered ignoring her. But as she had asked nicely, without scorn or disgust, he smiled at her and nodded.

He knew what she saw. A decently dressed professional man, well groomed and well-kept, there was no reason to look down at him. '_Too bad,'_ he thought. _'Too bad she can't see the patchwork that's my insides.'_

He wished Arthur was there. '_Shit! So fucking clingy'_. He knew it was wrong, knew that Arthur was too good for him. He had no business wishing Arthur anywhere near the train-wreck that he represented. But Arthur would take charge and know exactly what to do to help.

Like the night Merlin found his mother lying in the bathtub, razor on the floor, and her wrists bleeding.

"Mum!" he shouted, as if he could shake her awake with only the panic in his voice. "Mum!"

The phone shook in his hand as he dialled. Six times he tried and it was only on the last attempt that he could hear the ringing on the other end.

His knuckles were white. The fingers on one hand fisted in his hair and the other hand clutched the phone like a lifeline. He felt his body start to shake with violent tremors, making him so terrified that he would drop the phone that he clung even tighter until the plastic squeaked in protest under his grip.

"Hello?"

Merlin sobbed, because the words he wanted to say caught in his throat. And then he couldn't catch back his breath to make himself calm down long enough to speak.

He was crying out the words and it didn't help. Nothing would help. He was so sure that it was already too late.

"Merlin?" Arthur's voice had an edge of panic, but mostly he kept it level. "Take a deep breath. Good. Now tell me slowly, what's wrong."

When the words came out, they were mixed with even more tears. Merlin couldn't concentrate on what he was saying, not knowing if he was even saying the right words that would make Arthur understand what his mother had done.

But Arthur understood, and Arthur knew what to do.

Merlin sat in the corner of the bathroom and rocked himself back and forth. He couldn't bear to look at her slumped figure. Couldn't see anything past all the red that surrounded her, almost swallowing her up.

He rocked and he cried. And then Arthur was there, holding him, holding him so tightly that he finally felt like he was weighted down and tethered to the Earth again. He clung to the arms that encased him in warmth, turning his face away when the paramedics rushed into the small room, slipping an oxygen mask over her face and strapping her to a trolley.

He was still shaking, still trying to gasp out sobs that tore their way up and out of his body, and the fear felt like it was drowning him, even after they were the only two people left in the house.

Arthur pulled Merlin to his feet, supporting him as his body felt too weak to walk.

Somehow they made it to the dining room where Merlin was allowed to collapse exhaustedly into the nearest chair. Merlin's mind spun with images after images of his mother. His mother laughing. His mother crying. His mother sleeping. His mother bleeding. His mother, disappearing behind her sadness more and more each day. He racked his brain trying to find out when she had spiralled so far that he hadn't seen it.

_'Should have helped her.'_ The guilt was almost unbearable.

"Here." Arthur wrapped Merlin's fingers around the cup of hot tea. The heat beneath his fingers felt so good to Merlin that he wanted to get lost in it. "Drink. It will make you feel better."

Merlin drank, because doing what he was told made the most sense.

"I have to," he paused, then tried again. "I have to go to the hospital. When she wakes up, she'll want to see me."

He had no idea if this was true and it just made the panic in him rise more. Maybe she would want to see him. Maybe, but the more likely option was that she would scream at him for saving her from death's oblivion.

"Not tonight," Arthur responded softly.

Merlin shook his head in protest, knowing that whatever Arthur said next was not going to be something he wanted to hear. What he wanted, was his mother. And she was now lying half dead, alone in a hospital bed.

"I don't give a shit what you think I should do tonight," Merlin breathed out venomously. "I'm going to the hospital to be there when she wakes."

Arthur looked at him with that same quiet strength that kept Merlin grounded. When he spoke, he left no room for argument.

"She'll be high on medication and likely being kept sedated if she's not taken into emergency surgery right away. They're not going to let you see her until tomorrow morning. So tonight, you're going to just take a fucking breath, and try to sleep. You look like you're barely conscious right now."

Merlin had no words to fight such sound logic. Merlin felt like he barely had the strength to keep taking in air much less make his way stubbornly out the front door on his own. And if Arthur wasn't going to ring a taxi for him, then he was going to have to fend for himself. That was not something he was prepared to do.

So without another word, Merlin slumped over onto the table, arms crossed, and rested his head at the crux. He could still feel Arthur's eyes assessing him. He didn't know what the other boy saw, but whatever it was, it had Arthur pulling him to his feet and leading him into the living room.

"We'll sleep in here tonight." Arthur told him. "You sleep on the chair and I'll take the floor."

"No!" The one word ripped itself out of Merlin like a blade. "You're not to sleep on the floor. I can do that. What kind of host would I be to let you stay, on the floor?"

And then his words caught up and Merlin pulled away from the firm way that Arthur was directing him towards the biggest chair.

"You're not staying! Your parents will have a -"

Arthur cut him off calmly, "My parents think I'm out to visit Morgana at her mum's place. If I tell them I fell asleep there they won't think to ask questions. It's too late for them to call and check if I'm really there, and by tomorrow morning, it won't matter that I spent the night out."

Again, sound logic that Merlin couldn't argue with.

"I'll sleep on the floor though," he groused. "I don't want you getting your nice clothes dirty. God knows your shirt alone probably cost as much as my entire wardrobe."

Years later Merlin remembered that night.

He remembered it as he snuck into Arthur's dorm room in university, and into Arthur's flat when Arthur got into graduate school, and into Arthur's room in the year before Arthur met Sofia and got married.

During those so rare and precious nights, he would lie on the couch or spread a blanket on the floor and fall asleep, like that first night. Always waking up ashamed and guilty the next morning at how needy he was, and at how much he felt complete just knowing that Arthur was near.

Even when he was high. Even when he was drunk. Even when he couldn't remember half the night through a haze of partying and passing out, Arthur was true north for him. Somehow, he couldn't get himself to stop gravitating towards his best friend.

...

The first thing Merlin wanted to do when he got off the plane in New York was to kiss the solid ground.

As this wasn't an option while surrounded by airport personnel and frantic passengers anxious not to miss info on their flight, the first thing that Merlin eventually did was to rent a car.

Since he had at least six hours to waste before needing to return to catch his flight to Sydney, he scheduled two last minute business meetings. One was with a potential client, a start-up company that had revenue but needed good marketing. The other was with an existing client, an actress who had only recently switched from commercials and wanted help establishing herself in New York City.

When he made his first and most important stop to grab a box of dramamine at the drugstore, he texted Morgana, asking for what she knew about where Arthur had been staying. While he waited, he read the instructions on the back of the box, over and over.

Taking medication as directed was never a hard and fast rule in Merlin's household. Some medications he hadn't even known came with directions. When Gaius had been sick, he took as many pills as he thought he needed to alleviate the pain. And Merlin's mum either threw her anti-depressants in the bin, tried to swallow whole bottles of them if she got her hands on any, or refused to take them at all.

Merlin didn't even want to think on what he did when he came in possession of narcotics, poppers, or sleep-aids.

"God they can't be serious," Merlin breathed out as the recommended dosage sunk in. "One pill every four hours to a maximum of four pills in twenty four hours."

The only time he ever managed to take only one pill at a time of anything was when Arthur was holding on to the rest of them.

Merlin considered his options.

He would begin with one pill as instructed and see how the rest of the flight went from there. Which meant that it was probably a good idea to eat at some point between his two meetings. If he was going to spend a twenty-two hour flight on edge, he had to make sure that he didn't eat during the long flight.

Merlin's phone buzzed. He opened the text message from Morgana, studying the address that she gave him. As soon as he landed in Sydney, she wanted regular updates until he found her brother.

Merlin texted back reassurance that she would know what he knew once he arrived, but as soon as he found Arthur all communication was going to end. He intended to focus entirely on taking care of Arthur.

_'Not going to let him go,'_ he promised himself as he made his way back to his car. _'I'll curl around his legs if I have to. Go where he's going. Make sure he's better.' _

He had done something like that when he was fourteen, after Gaius died in hospital and after the second time his mum had attempted suicide and was finally sectioned.

It lasted only for two months as a pocket of time when Merlin was all alone with no adult in his life to look after him. Merlin had been so afraid of being taken into care that the only person he told was Arthur.

The trick, Arthur pointed out, was to not let anyone catch on to the fact that he was underage and living alone.

Merlin learned a lot in those two months. He had to keep the house and the yard clean, making sure that there was never any signs of neglect. He had to do laundry once a week, taking care to wear clean clothes and look decent when he showed up to school. And he couldn't be tired, couldn't look hungry, couldn't act like his life had gone to hell.

When he got to school each day, Merlin breathed in relief, because Arthur was there to take over the hard things.

Arthur took care of getting him lunch each day, of managing his money for him, of telling him what to do to get stains out of his uniform, and how to hide circles under his eyes. Sometimes Arthur would sit and comb his hair on the days when Merlin swore his body was falling asleep even though his eyes were open.

And every week Arthur gave him a list of things to buy when he went shopping. Then they would meet at Merlin's house and figured out how to stir-fry without oil because it was healthier, and how to wash blankets in the machine without flooding the basement, and how to pay the bills that came in the mail daily.

As much as his mother neglected things when she was lying in bed, she was always willing to give Merlin instructions if he asked. Not having anyone else taking care of the adult issues related to living on his own would have been a nightmare, Merlin knew, if Arthur wasn't there beside him learning them too.

Then every evening, Arthur would sit in the chair at the side of Merlin's bed, feet stretched out across to stop just short of where Merlin laid. And Merlin would fall asleep to the sound of Arthur turning a page as he read a book for class, or the sound of Arthur's pen scribble as he did his homework.

It was the closest Merlin ever came to the burning desire inside himself to curl like a cat around Arthur's legs and kiss Arthur's knees and calf and toes if he had to, utterly grateful to have Arthur so near.

...

The flight to Sydney went by in a blur.

About three hours into the flight, Merlin had all the flight attendants constantly gravitating towards his seat. They kept him fed on peppermint tea and ginger snaps. And since the seat beside him was vacant, one of the male flight attendants gave him a nice, gentle massage, until he fell into one of his many bouts of sleep.

He hadn't switched out his ticket for first class like he originally planned. Since the flight was going to be hellish no matter where he sat, his game plan was to keep himself only awake long enough for bathroom breaks.

It all worked out well once the flight crew made his acquaintance. Merlin was always good at making fast friends.

When he finally landed in Sydney, he had all their numbers, including the number of the pilot for some reason, because they all thought it was a pity that Merlin wasn't feeling well enough to go meet him personally. And even though one of the last major promises he made to Arthur was no more casual sex, Merlin took the pieces of paper anyway, so as not to hurt their feelings.

The apartment complex that Arthur was staying at looked like a hotel at first glance.

Merlin parked the car then checked the address one last time even though it didn't really surprise him.

Arthur became CEO of his father's company when Uther Pendragon died. It was what he had always planned to do when he got his MBA. Arthur had been wealthy his entire life, but Merlin could count on only one hand the amount of times Arthur allowed Merlin to really see what this meant.

To Merlin, Arthur was just Arthur, and they both liked it just fine that way.

Merlin wheeled the small carry-on sized suitcase that had been his only checked luggage, into the elevator and pressed the button for the penthouse condo. All the while, he texted snippy little messages to Morgana.

_Got to the condo. Looks like the Ritz. I'm not that impressed to be honest._

This was immediately followed by two short, unambiguous words, which made Merlin laugh out loud.

_His door looks like the entrance to Buckingham. Maybe I should ring the butler ahead of time_, he typed next. Then, _I've knocked and can hear footsteps. This is where I tell you to piss off. Will text back only if it's not him._

"Arthur!" Merlin called out, as he knocked again. "Arthur, let me in please?"

"Go away!"

Merlin closed his eyes at the voice. It sounded gruff and cranky, but he knew Arthur's voice even in his sleep.

He rested his forehead again the door and tried to see if he could work out what Arthur was doing on the other side of the divide. When he heard shuffling, then the sound of another door slamming shut, he sighed, squeezed his eyes closed even tighter for a brief second then sighed.

His vision blurred with tears. It wasn't at the rejection. If Arthur didn't want him to come in yet Merlin didn't mind waiting. The tears was for the worry, and the relief that had formed a ball in his stomach. At least he knew Arthur hadn't done what his mum eventually managed to do. At least he knew Arthur was okay. Maybe not well, but safe.

Merlin pulled out his laptop from his bag then sent both Gwaine and Freya each a quick e-mail saying he had arrived and was in contact with Arthur. Then, he made himself comfortable on the floor and started working through all the business he had missed taking care of in twenty-four hours.

Three hours later Merlin heard the latch on the door click open.

He looked up from his laptop and listened again for further movement. But there was only silence. The wood of the door felt cold against Merlin's cheek. It felt smooth against his fingertips as he pressed his fingers against it. But he didn't push against it to gain entrance. Instead he waited, and when the ache inside of him grew to an almost physical pain he finally spoke.

"Arthur," he called out in a voice laced with emotions. "Please may I come in now?"

"Yes," Arthur called back, in a voice that was so tired it made Merlin shake and shake. "Yes, you may come in now Merlin."

Arthur was retreating into the bedroom again when Merlin made it inside the condo. He was just in time to see the door close. Merlin propped his suitcase near the entry, slipped off his shoes and looked around the beautiful, spacious, living area.

The place was a mess. Empty plastic cartons laid on the centre-table. Pillows, blankets, sheets laid strewn half on the couch and mostly on the floor. Nothing was where it should be. When Merlin walked into the kitchen there were dirty dishes mixed with half eaten food on the counter and on the table. And for some reason, there were at least four cups of tea stuck in random places, with varying amounts of tea still in them.

Merlin squeezed his nails into his palms, feeling like the Earth was vibrating with him. He had to take several gasps of breath to calm his racing heart.

He would take care of everything, now that he was here.

He carefully made his way across the apartment to the bedroom door, and knocked lightly on it.

"Arthur?"

There wasn't even a space of silence before the response came, "It's open Merlin. Come in."

Arthur looked no better than his apartment did. He was curled up onto the bed, his back to the door. The sheets and blanket were hanging, mostly off the bed than on. Arthur was draped in a bathrobe and what looked suspiciously like the bottom of his pyjamas, feet bare, hair a mess. Merlin could make out a growth of stubble on the line of Arthur's jaw and chin that was visible from his vantage point.

Arthur didn't move, didn't speak, didn't acknowledge Merlin's presence in any way as Merlin moved to approach the bed. Merlin's chest tightened with each step.

Until, Merlin's legs couldn't hold him up any longer. He slid down to the floor at the side of the bed onto his knees, resting back on his legs as he curved his back, bending his head so that only his forehead rested on the mattress near to where Arthur laid.

His fingertips tingled and Merlin had to, needed, to reach out. He knew he couldn't touch Arthur. Knew he wouldn't stop touching Arthur if he did, and Arthur wouldn't want Merlin to check him over everywhere for bruises and stitches and signs of the accident that had taken Arthur's wife away.

But Merlin wanted so much to feel that Arthur was alright, that he let his fingers find the edge of Arthur's pants, near Arthur's ankles. As quietly as he could, he let his mind and his body drink in the proof that Arthur was here.

It was the most he would allow himself to do. It was the only addiction he indulged in anymore, this overwhelming, burning ache to be with Arthur all the time. While they were continents apart for years, Merlin had felt like he was torn in two, his body on automation, his mind on his work, and the rest, everything else, attached itself to Arthur. It was all too much some days. It was like bleeding, like screaming, like only half existing, like knowing that this was where he belonged, wherever Arthur was.

And now, finally, finally being close to Arthur again, it all just made him fall even more in love with Arthur than ever before.

.

xxx...TBC...xxx


	2. Chapter 2of4

**Warning: **_AU (modern), language, substance abuse, graphic imagery, D/s  
><em>

**Pairing: **_Merlin/Arthur_

**Rating: **_R_

**Inspired by: **_One Real Thing__ by Anah Crow and Dianne Fox_

**Summary: **The course of true love never did run smooth. Arthur and Merlin knows this all too well.**  
><strong>

**Author:** _Spirit_

**A/N:** Please be warned that this isn't your typical Merlin/Arthur fic. The relationship is and will be shown to be somewhat different from the usual. It isn't disturbing, just different. All I ask is that you'll give it a chance and hopefully, by the end, you'll understand it and enjoy reading the fic as I've enjoyed writing it.

* * *

><p>.<p>

.

**ALL THE COMPLEXITIES**

.

.

_You are my sweetest downfall,  
><em>

_I loved you first.  
><em>

_I loved you first. _

_Samson__ by Regina Spektor_

_._

_**Part Two**_

.

Arthur woke up to sunshine streaming through drapes he hadn't opened, and no sign of Merlin.

What he did see when he rolled out of bed was a tray of food. He remembered Merlin bringing it in to him some time during the evening. He hadn't been hungry so he had turned away, and assumed that Merlin would eat, leaving only the plate he had prepared for Arthur.

Both plates of food remained untouched on the tray. Arthur's eyes narrowed at the sight of, not so much the waste of food, but the implication that Merlin had spent the night hungry.

As soon as Arthur got to the the living room, he saw Merlin, curled onto his side at the base of the couch. There were blankets crumpled around him, but the actual couch itself was accessible. Merlin hadn't chosen to sleep on the couch.

_'He's impossible,'_ Arthur thought.

Even in sleep though, he looked young, and beautiful, and so real, and alive and well, that Arthur felt his stomach tighten and his body ache. His one desire, for so long it was now imprinted on his soul, was to pull Merlin into his arms and hold on to him.

'_Want to keep you safe.'_

The words burned with a life of their own inside of him. He had always wanted to protect Merlin, to look after him, and to know that when Merlin was healthy it was by his hands.

He didn't know when this need had started to take root. Maybe the first day they met with Merlin at his feet. Or the first time he held out food and Merlin wordlessly opened his mouth and allowed himself to be fed. It was a storm inside that grew. Other people might have taken it as Arthur being controlling, but Merlin never saw it that way. Merlin seemed happy to let Arthur take over making decisions. Relieved even.

"You're awake." Merlin's smile, so hauntingly beautiful in the morning, stole Arthur's breath away.

Arthur took a step towards him, then stopped when he realized what he was doing. Merlin was untouchable, like an apparition. So wild and so independent, with no laws and no boundaries. Merlin was like air that Arthur had no business trying to contain.

And God, he wanted so badly to own just a piece of this man he was so in love with.

"You didn't eat?" Arthur asked into the silence. "Weren't you starving after your long flight?"

Merlin sat up, curled his legs up to his chest, and peered sideways at Arthur. He shrugged the way he used to in that careless way that said nothing mattered if he didn't let it.

"You didn't eat," he responded. "So I didn't eat."

It started in university, this game they played. Merlin had turned eighteen just before he started university, so the money that his father had willed to him was finally all at Merlin's disposal. Merlin disposed of money like he did toilet paper. Not for a moment did Arthur ever think that Merlin would choose school, but he did. Arthur just had to keep him there.

It was during that time, around midway through their first year, when Merlin would disappear for days and left Arthur frantic and worried. The game was a challenge and Arthur had started it to save Merlin's life one night when he found Merlin strung out and tripping on one or many of the pills he had swallowed.

"What did you take!" Arthur shouted when he saw the bottles strewn across Merlin's dorm room carpet, the pills all mixed together. "Merlin!"

Merlin laughed, and waved his arms in a wide erratic arc to encompass the universe and the rainbow of pills scattered beside him.

"What the fuck does it matter what I took. They're taken. Fucking help or go away."

Arthur grabbed for a few of the empty bottles at random. It hurt him to read the labels as he recognized most of the names.

"I'm taking you to a hospital," he said. "Get up. Get up or I am going to start shoving you until you move."

"I'm not going to a hospital."

Arthur narrowed his eyes. Fear twisted like a knife in his gut and all he could see were images of Merlin's dead body flashing before his eyes. He silently swore that this would not end that way.

"Merlin, I'm not playing. Get up!"

He grabbed Merlin's arms, pulling hard enough that Merlin's body slammed into his. Merlin cursed. Arthur felt his heart twist. He wanted to shout some more but he knew he couldn't. When he tried to wrap his arms around the thin, trembling shoulders, Merlin jerked back away from him as if he'd been burned.

"All right." Arthur took a deep breath. "Stay and don't fall asleep."

It took nearly half an hour of pounding on random dorm room doors and begging, but Arthur returned to Merlin with a bottle of Ipecac and a plastic spoon. Merlin took one look at the bottle and shook his head.

"I'm not drinking that shit," he declared icily.

Exasperated, Arthur glared at him. "You have to drink it. It'll help to get rid of all the pills."

"You love it so much, you drink it," Merlin responded immediately.

It had been the only thing Arthur could think of and he said it as soon as he thought the words.

"If you drink it, I'll drink it."

Arthur didn't know what to say to Merlin's words now, because to refute them would be to negate all that they meant in the past. He had gotten Merlin to do a lot of things over the years by doing them with him. Eating the right food, and sleeping when he was tired, going to classes, purging the drugs and the alcohol, even going to hospital when he was hurt.

"I won't ever ask you to do something that would hurt you," Arthur said to Merlin countless times. "I won't ever ask you to do something I wouldn't do. You know that right?"

"Yes Arthur," Merlin responded quietly each time, without sarcasm and without contempt.

Arthur knew Merlin trusted him, if for no other reason but that Arthur earned his trust slowly, painful, again and again each day since the moment they met.

"Move over a bit," Arthur requested now.

When Merlin did, Arthur sat beside him on the floor. Merlin glanced over at him, then quickly, as if he couldn't ever stay too long, he pressed a kiss to Arthur's cheek. When Arthur did the same, it was Merlin who pulled away. Arthur could only hide his hurt, but it was always like that.

_'Untouchable Merlin,'_ his thoughts taunted. _'Everybody gets to hold on to you, but me.' _

"You look awful," Merlin whispered, and the words pulled Arthur back into the moment like a rope.

Arthur shrugged. He knew what he looked like. He didn't care, as long as it was only Merlin doing the looking.

He thought about Sofia. Blonde haired, sun-kissed beauty, she had been distractingly beautiful in the traditional way. Not like Merlin. Merlin was all angles with his sharp jaw and big ears, with his dark blue eyes and lips that made Arthur's stomach tighten, wanting to kiss them the way other men and women kissed Merlin. Sofia was like sunshine in contrast to Merlin's storm. Arthur chose her because she was the kind of woman he needed, professional, beautiful, a proper English girl. Except it turned out that she wasn't any of that at all, really.

Arthur ran his fingers through his hair, and massaged his temples. Every thought about Sofia made his head hurt. But he thought about her because he owed her the memories, even though he couldn't think about the night of the accident without wanting to kill her all over again.

"Don't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Merlin leaned across the short space and pulled Arthur's hand away. He wrapped his fingers around Arthur's fingers. The heat from their hands distracted Arthur well enough that all thoughts of Sofia unravelled in his head. Merlin gently pressed his forehead onto Arthur's, nose against nose, so close they could feel the wisps of each other's breaths tickle their lips.

"Sorry," Merlin murmured again. "Didn't mean to make you upset."

He pressed a kiss onto one of Arthur's eyebrows. Then he couldn't seem to meet Arthur's eyes anymore. Arthur saved himself and gently pulled away. Merlin kissed their still entwined fingers on both hands in response to the lost contact. He didn't let go even when Arthur was sure he would.

Merlin was mesmerizing to everyone who met him. Arthur knew that Merlin just didn't realize this. It was a dangerous, on edge, sexy kind of beauty. Merlin couldn't care less what anyone else thought. He did what he did because it made him feel good. He did it all because he loved it, not because it made others love him more. At all the parties Merlin would walk into a room and minutes later the occupants of the room rotated around him.

People grabbed him, kissed him, stroked him all over, unable it seemed to Arthur, to keep their fingers away from whatever magic he bound them with. Arthur lost track of the amount of times he walked into a pub and Merlin had one woman in his lap kissing the parts of him she could reach, while another woman on the side was slowly being kissed. Not counting the men. Men who would pull Merlin to them on the dance floors of the wild parties, slipping fingers down his shirt and into his pants while Merlin laughed, high most of the time, and very happy.

And Arthur would show up, and take him by the arm, and pull him away from them.

Merlin stole kisses, stole touches, teased, and flirted with Arthur constantly when he knew he could get away with it. But then he would turn away, apologize, sometimes pretending he hadn't wrapped himself in Arthur's arms on impulse, or pressed his lips to Arthur's throat. And he would quickly slip away, not giving Arthur time to ask questions or be angry.

Then Arthur would find him wrapped in someone else's arms, kissing someone else, tongue sliding over someone else's body, lips wrapped around someone else's cock, fucking someone else. And the pain would slice through Arthur so deeply he trembled.

_'Not about me then,'_ he remembered thinking on one of those occasions.

In the back of the car that Gwaine was driving, Gwen was on her phone trying to talk Lance into meeting up and pub crawling with them. Arthur sat pretending to look out the glass, when really he watched Merlin in the reflection.

Merlin had another man in his lap, one Arthur knew they'd never met before. They were kissing, moaning into each other's mouth. The brown haired stranger was writhing in Merlin's arms, dry humping Merlin through their clothes. He was making so much noise of pleasure Merlin might as well have been fucking him. Arthur wondered a few times if he was, except he knew Merlin never fucked anyone without a condom as a promise to Arthur. And once or twice anyway, Merlin laughed at the other man's enthusiasm.

When Merlin moved his fingers to slip the brunette's shirt off, Arthur watched his slender fingers glide slowly across bare flesh, felt his skin tingle in sympathy to the touch, and he wanted what the other man got so freely.

"Merlin that's enough," he chastised quietly. "You need to put your seatbelt on. If we get into an accident I don't want to watch the two of you fly through the windshield."

The brunette laughed. "Are you for real? Fucking mind your own business, mate. You're just jealous."

Merlin hadn't said anything, just dug his nails into the flesh beneath his fingers where he had been caressing the man's back earlier. The brown-haired man yelped, half in pain and turned on even more if the dark smile he flashed Merlin in response was any indication. Merlin shoved him onto the floor, already reaching for his seatbelt. The man scrambled onto the seat between them, kissing Merlin's chest and cheek and all the while murmuring words of apology.

Merlin accepted the kisses, accepted the touches, accepted the apologies, but when they got to the pub he stayed in the car with Arthur and Gwaine. It was Gwen who had to pull the other man away, as Arthur nodded to Gwaine and they drove off.

"I didn't mean to cut your night short," Arthur finally said, guilty, and disgusted, and relieved.

Merlin shrugged. "He doesn't get to talk to you like that."

Even though the next words hurt, Arthur felt bad enough to offer them up in concession.

"Next pub you can find as many as you want, I won't interrupt. I just don't want you in the car beside me without your seatbelt on. If they want to suck you off or ride you while we're driving, it's your business. Just make sure if anything happens you're not the one most likely to end up lying on the asphalt."

"Yes Arthur." Merlin grinned. "If it's what you want, then I'll always wear a seatbelt when I'm fucking someone in a car."

Arthur turned away, from the image that sprung to mind, from the words as Merlin emphasized them, and from the smile on Merlin's face.

"Actually Gwaine, do you mind taking me home first?" he called out instead. "Sorry mate, I know you wanted to meet up with Valerie. Tell her that her ex-boyfriend says hi, but I'm knackered."

In the reflection of the glass, Arthur saw Merlin's happiness collapse in on itself. He turned, trying to rescue the situation.

"Don't worry about me. Your night doesn't have to end just because I don't feel up to partying anymore. You were having more fun than me anyway. Just promise not to do anything stupid, and ring me when you get in no matter the time."

Merlin looked down, uncertainty radiated from his entire posture. Then he met Arthur's gaze briefly and shrugged.

"If you're going home, I'll go home," he said. "I can ring Tyler. He's been hinting that he wants to sleep over one of these days and if I end up fucking someone tonight it might as well be him."

The way he said it, easy and nonchalant, as if the words weren't designed to rip into Arthur's heart, made Arthur's muscles clench. Arthur knew, had always known, that if it wasn't one person it was another, just that it would never be Arthur himself.

_'Not about me then,'_ he thought through the ache.

...

Arthur laid on the couch when Merlin got up to make them breakfast.

When he asked why Merlin hadn't slept on the couch in the first place, Merlin had gone a shade of red and muttered that he wasn't a fan of white leather, and that the blankets made the floor much softer.

Arthur had been too tired to question him further. But when Merlin walked back into the room, laden with a tray of only one plate of pancakes and fruit served with syrup, and instead of sitting on the couch beside Arthur when Arthur sat up to make space, sat down on the floor instead, Arthur couldn't help the frown.

"I like sitting down here," Merlin quickly said.

Arthur looked down at him and responded, "I don't want you to feel like you can't use my things. The chair is meant to be sat on. And the bed is big enough to hold two people if you want. You're not my servant stuck in the old days, you're my best friend."

Merlin looked away, biting his lower lip as if the words he wanted to say were something Arthur wasn't going to want to hear. Arthur wanted to hear everything and anything Merlin ever wanted to say.

Taking a chance, he reach across to tilt Merlin's chin back up with the tip of his fingers.

"What?" he asked gently.

Merlin squirmed, rocked onto his knees, ran shaking fingers over his face, and was getting so jittery that Arthur started to get worried.

"What?" he asked again. "Just say it."

"You don't want to hear it," Merlin whimpered. "It's not good. You'll think..."

"I won't think anything," Arthur promised.

"I want to," Merlin admitted softly. "To give you things. To do things for you. Want to take care of you. I want to wait on you, make your bed and give you a bath, and iron your clothes, and take care of your place for you. I want to, so you don't have to worry about anything. Just wake up and it's all done. I want to make your life easy for you."

Arthur thought about it.

"You want...to...to be..." he started slowly.

"Yes. That." Merlin groaned, hiding his face on Arthur's knees. "You make all the big decisions and I'll do anything you want. Please, I want to do anything you'll let me do for you."

Merlin finally looked up to meet Arthur's confused gaze. He smiled shyly, and even though Arthur still didn't know what to say, he managed a smile back.

"You just get better. Feel better about Sofia dying, and think about how to get back into the swing of running the Pendragon Corporation. I'll clean up the place and make the meals you tell me to, while you figure shit out."

'_Want to take care of you.' _The sentiment swirled in Arthur's head, intermingled with his own secret desire. '_Want to keep you safe.'_

The words fit like a lock and key, to the way Arthur had always felt about Merlin. While he was keeping Merlin safe and fed and healthy, Merlin wanted to do things for him.

"All right," Arthur agreed. "If you want to, then you can."

Merlin reach across to stroke Arthur's knee, looking both relieved and worried, when it was Arthur who couldn't hold his gaze.

"I want to," he said emphatically. "Please let me."

Arthur's chest ached and ached and he wanted nothing more than to pull Merlin into his lap, wrap himself around him and whisper over and over if he could, that Merlin was welcome to do anything, anything at all as long as it kept Merlin smiling. Arthur had seen so many tears and so much pain on Merlin's face throughout their life together and he couldn't believe that this one thing could really be the one thing that Merlin wanted to do. Not when Arthur wanted it so badly as well.

"I'm sorry you had to come here," Arthur said and even he could hear the pain that laced the words. "I didn't want to fuck up your life now that you've been doing so well. I'm so proud of you. I'm sorry I've pulled you back into all this, into my mess. You deserve to be happy. I want you happy Merlin."

Merlin's breath hitched into an audible sob. He leaned over to kiss Arthur's leg, to grab Arthur's hand and kiss Arthur's fingers.

"No. No!" He shook his head, eyes big and blue and pleading. "You could never, ever, fuck up my life Arthur. Ever! If you need me, I'll always come. Always. I'll come crawling if I have to. Who says I could ever be happy if you're all fucked up inside? Why would you think that? Just because you've given me a life and made me into a better person, doesn't mean you get to walk away and suffer alone."

Merlin's eyes filled with tears, and he wiped them away impatiently, pressing Arthur's palm to his lips over and over again, kissing through the tears and his desperate words.

"I can't be me if you're not okay," he murmured. "I can't be happy if you're not happy. Do you know how much I owe you? Not taking care of you now, when you need me, isn't something I can even think of doing. Who I am is all because of you, and how you put me together again so many times that I finally know how to stop breaking. I'm clean and I'm safe because of you. I was happy because I thought you were happy."

He sucked in a breath, shaking and still silently crying, but desperate to get the words out. Arthur felt the urgency in the way he held his hand, in the way he stopped Arthur from looking away. He was still on his knees but he pulled Arthur's face towards his with his other hand, pressing their foreheads together.

"If you want me to go, I'll go." Arthur felt a stab of pain slice through his heart at even the idea, but Merlin kept talking. "If it makes you feel better to not have me around, then tell me to leave and I'll leave. I'll do anything to make you better. I know I'm hard to be around and you must be so fucking tired of me always in your space. I'll stop, and I'll go away, if it hurts to have me here."

It hurt Arthur to not have Merlin. He couldn't have sent Merlin away if his life depended on it. But he didn't know how to say all that without saying too much. The last time he asked someone to stay it had been Sofia and she had taken everything that she could before she left anyway. Even Merlin.

"Stay," Arthur breathed, kissing away the wetness on Merlin's cheeks. "Stay, because I'm selfish and I want you here."

Arthur knew he was selfish when it came to Merlin. He knew it wasn't true but he had always felt that he was the only person who knew what Merlin needed, the only person who could look after him. It was an arrogant thought, especially because Merlin was like the wind, uncontrollable, untamed, with no boundaries. Arthur became his walls, became his rock, became the person who Merlin called at three in the morning when he was scared he'd overdosed, the person Merlin clung to when his mother almost died over and over again, and when she finally did. And it was all done through selfishness, because Arthur loved every second it meant he could keep Merlin safe.

"You can say no to me," Arthur had told him once before when they were sitting in Arthur's apartment after Arthur began grad school. "If you want to, if it's important to you, you can tell me no and I'll listen to your reasons."

Merlin had woken up with a hangover, and instead of staying in bed, he drove over to Arthur's place, knocked a few times on Arthur's door before slumping to the ground in defeat. Arthur found him lying on the carpet in the hallway, with his head cradled in his palms.

Arthur pulled him to his feet, guided him to the bedroom, and ordered him to go back to sleep. When he woke, Arthur had made him toast, served with a glass of orange juice, and two tablets of maximum strength ibuprofen.

Merlin rolled over, groaned in pain and hid his eyes behind his palms, not looking at the food or the pills. He sat up, opened his mouth when Arthur told him to, and swallowed the pills that Arthur told him to swallow. Then he ate the bread, and drank the juice, all without question. It was an absolute trust that made Arthur light-headed.

"Why would I say no to you?" Merlin asked, pressing his face into Arthur's shoulder when Arthur tried to check if Merlin's pupils were dilated, indicating anything more than alcohol. "You make me better. Why would I not want that?"

"When I make you meals," Arthur pointed out. "When I tell you what to wear and how I like to brush your hair when you show up here in the mornings sometimes looking like you haven't slept. When I tell you to sleep, because you look tired. When I tell you to do stuff you might not want me to."

"I like it!" Merlin protested in an exasperated tone.

Arthur knew that deep inside he loved it more, this making decisions for Merlin. He didn't want to control Merlin and be a dictator, he wanted to make sure Merlin started each day alive and ended each day alive and the only way he knew how to do this was to be Merlin's walls. He just didn't want Merlin to ever feel trapped.

"Say no, if you don't like something though," he whispered soothingly back, careful not to touch Merlin in case Merlin startled and fled from his arms. "Don't ever let me take advantage. You say no to other people. You can say no to me if you want and I'll listen to why."

"You're not other people," Merlin pointed out. "You don't do manipulative shit. But if it's important to you, then yes Arthur, I'll say no sometimes if I really need to."

...

Arthur stayed on the couch and Merlin stayed with him for a little while, just watching him eat. And when Merlin asked Arthur very sweetly, very softly, if he could please have some coffee instead of the orange juice Arthur preferred him to drink, Arthur quietly responded with a yes. Then Arthur fed him slices of strawberries and blueberries, and forkful of pancakes, and Merlin very obediently, very trustingly, opened his mouth and allowed Arthur to feed him.

But even with Merlin there, Arthur couldn't fake the enthusiasm he would need to get through the day. He felt so exhausted, as if the years of trying so hard to be the perfect husband to Sofia had all accumulated to haunt him.

_'I'm not sorry she died,'_ he realized. _'I'm sorry she's dead'_.

Sofia had been manipulative. She wanted to be at the centre of everything. The world had to have eyes on her at all times. When she couldn't remain in the spotlight she created the drama herself. And she had pulled Arthur along in her wake. Her screeches of anger one moment contrasted constantly with her melodramatic sobs. If Sofia cried a real tear in her life, felt real sadness at any point, or even regretted any of her mistakes, Arthur had never seen it. The day she told him she'd been cheating on him she laughed at his expectations of fidelity. Maybe he had been naive to trust her.

Image was everything to Sofia. In her photographs she looked angelic and pure, but inside she was poison. Perhaps, Arthur wondered, this was why she hated Merlin so much. Merlin hid nothing. Merlin cried, and bled, and laughed, and danced, in public with no shame. He had to be loved for who he was or not at all. No excuses, no apologies, no secrets.

"Who is that?" Sofia asked the first day she met Merlin, who was sprawled across Arthur's bed.

Arthur had finally gotten Merlin to sleep, after Merlin had stumbled in an hour or so earlier, and he was stroking his hair as soothingly as he could when Sofia walked in. He kept his eyes on Merlin, knowing that Merlin needed sleep more than he needed to be a part of whatever drama Sofia was about to unleash.

"He is Merlin," Arthur snapped quietly. "And if you wake him I won't be pleased."

She allowed herself to be dragged out of the room by her arm since she wasn't going to leave on her own, it seemed to Arthur. When they got to the living room she rounded on him, anger twisting her pretty mouth into a grim line.

"Did you fuck him?" She asked coldly.

Arthur took a deep breath before he responded, "He's my best friend. You're my girlfriend, so no I didn't fuck him or anyone else since we've been together. I'm not that kind of man."

She laughed, a sound that was more bitter that amused.

"You're an idiot if you think I'm going to believe that," she snapped. "He looks like he'd fuck anything for a few quids and his next high. You have a drugged out, fucking train-wreck in the bed I sleep in with you sometimes, getting his filth everywhere and on everything!"

Merlin walked into the room then. Sofia had been shouting by the end so Arthur hadn't been surprised he'd woken up. But Merlin didn't look in Arthur's direction. His ice cold anger was directed at Sofia.

Arthur couldn't remember Merlin's words. All he remembered was the way Merlin looked, standing barefoot in Arthur's living room, hair a mess, wearing only a pants and no shirt. He was so thin, Arthur wanted to pick him up and feed him the contents of the entire pantry. The faded scars he had from his brief but terrifying bout with self-injury after his mother's suicide were still visible on his chest and his flat abdomen.

When Sofia left in a scream of indignation and threats, Arthur barely registered that she was gone.

"Come here," he said instead, holding out his hand to Merlin.

Merlin flinched back. "She wasn't wrong about me being filthy. Shouldn't have let me fall asleep in your bed. I'll wash the sheets before I leave."

"I don't give a shit about the sheets," Arthur retorted. "Fuck! Would you just come here and let me look at you properly please."

Merlin seemed to register then that he was shirtless. It was a state that Arthur saw him in numerous times each day and even more times at nights when Merlin went partying and Arthur had to take him safely home. But Arthur usually tried very hard not to stare at Merlin's body. He was treated so often to men and women whose hands traced every line and curve of Merlin's body that half his fantasies stemmed from memories.

Merlin shuffled over reluctantly but he still obeyed the request. Arthur could have counted Merlin's ribs if he tried. When Merlin was within reaching distance, Arthur pulled him into a hug, ignoring the way Merlin squirmed at first before completely relaxing.

"You're staying with me for the next week or two." Arthur couldn't help himself. He pressed a kiss into Merlin's hair and on Merlin's shoulder. "You look like a fucking skeleton! You're not leaving until you've put on at least five pounds. You'll eat what I give you. No more coffee, only orange juice from now on. No smoking. No drinking. And you're not to go out anywhere at nights while you're staying here. I want you to catch up on your sleep."

He pulled away and looked into Merlin's eyes. The whites of Merlin's eyes were red and his pupils were blown. Arthur's stomach twisted into a knot. He felt like he'd been so caught up with Sofia that he'd been neglecting Merlin. It probably wasn't true, but he couldn't help the guilt he felt.

"Go back to bed now," Arthur instructed. "I'll take you something to eat when you wake."

Merlin turned his face away, trying to pull out of Arthur's arms but Arthur wouldn't let him. So instead Merlin leaned in and kissed the side of Arthur's jaw, lingering just a little longer than usual.

And all he said, very softly, when he walked away was, "Yes Arthur."

...

Arthur was very sweetly requested to stay on the couch for the rest of the day, while Merlin tidied the apartment.

He agreed to this since he wanted to watch Merlin work. He could have insisted that he returned to the bedroom and give Merlin space to do what needed to be done, but it was interesting to watch. Merlin was so focused and so confident and such a contrast to the last time that Arthur saw him, as he meticulously finished each task.

Arthur had protested at first, insisting that he would get in Merlin's way, and that he had every confidence that Merlin could do the laundry and tidy the rooms without Arthur undermining his confidence. And besides, Arthur pointed out, he had no problem with the state of the condo as it was.

"I want you to watch me," Merlin insisted. "I don't mind. I don't want you to stay locked up in your bedroom with your thoughts. I know what happens when someone has only their sad thoughts to keep them company. I know you're nothing like my mother, but please Arthur, I'd rather you be where I can see you."

So it was settled.

Arthur remained on the couch and he watched Merlin slowly clean the living room of the past month's debris until it was as good as Arthur had first seen it. When he tidied the kitchen and then the bedroom, he kept up a shouted conversation with Arthur, half of which was infused with the sound of his laughter. Arthur closed his eyes, and savoured the sound each time, the way he did when they were in university and Merlin would genuinely laugh only for him. He had missed the sound.

Sometimes though, Merlin would have to answer a phone call from the PR firm he worked at or from one of their mutual friends. Since he was using his bluetooth, he would inevitably wander back into the living room, hand briefly at his ear, followed by an instant smile on his face. Arthur would listen in silence, watch him in silence, and drink in the moment seeing Merlin like this. It was surreal and it was beautiful. Arthur was, as usual, mesmerized, but in an entirely new way that made him feel so proud of Merlin, so very proud of the man he had become in three years.

Arthur remembered in frightening, vivid details, the voicemail message that he had received three years ago from Merlin that had him frantic to help his best friend, yet again. It was one that made his heart stop beating for seconds even now when it was just a memory.

"Arthur. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I fucked up really, really badly this time. I've been arrested. I'm being charged with possession of narcotics and driving while intoxicated. I know it's bad and you'll be so angry, but I swear, I swear Arthur it's not true. I'm not drunk and it's not narcotics! I know it doesn't matter. I understand if you don't care about the details. I just wanted to tell you, I'm sorry."

Arthur was in the middle of an informal business meeting when he received the message. Usually he ignored phone calls, but he never ignored messages from Merlin. He was already halfway through dialling the number for the Pendragon lawyer when he remembered the other two men in the room. Explaining was not an option so he muttered 'family emergency' before asking them to kindly go away.

Twenty minutes later he was speeding through traffic to get to the police station where Merlin had been taken.

Merlin was released within three hours and though Arthur didn't ask, he was certain his lawyer had orchestrated the turn of events. All he knew was that all charges were dropped. All he cared about was Merlin.

Arthur watched Merlin walk through the door into the tiny apartment Merlin rented and waited for the door to close. Waited for Merlin to turn around. He felt his breath catch, felt his chest tighten, felt a tremor run through his body when Merlin saw him, and all he wanted was to hold on to Merlin to make sure that the other man was really there.

Merlin looked at him, took a step backwards, and then sobbed a breath that tore through Arthur.

"I'm sorry," Merlin gasped out through sobs. "I'm sorry. I know it doesn't matter but I was at the legal alcohol limit. I wasn't driving drunk. I wouldn't! I know how fucking angry you'd be if I ever did. And I had a prescription for the drugs. I swear these aren't illegal."

_'This time,'_ Arthur realized. _'This time they were obtained legally. Luckily.'_

Arthur had no words he could say so he remained silent. The longer Arthur did stay silent was the more Merlin sobbed. He stood with his back against the door, the fingers of one hand laced through his hair while he wiped at the tears with the knuckles on the other hand. He looked so dejected, so broken, that Arthur felt like he was suffocating under the weight of Merlin's sadness. His worry, his anger, and all the emotions he had kept bottled up since he received the voicemail, seeped out of him, leaving him feeling cold and tired.

"Come here," he said softly.

Merlin gasped and didn't move. Arthur held out his hand, knowing that Merlin wouldn't take it but needing the contact more than anything in that moment.

Merlin approached slowly. When he was close enough to reach, instead of taking Arthur's hand into his, he crumpled to his knees. There were more sobs as he knelt, his arms were like a vice around Arthur's legs and he doubled over, sinking even lower towards the ground. All the while he sobbed out his apology over and over.

"Tell me to stop," he said solemnly when the wave of tears passed, though he remained on his knees, head bowed, speaking more to Arthur's toes than Arthur himself. "If you tell me to stop then I will. You know I do anything you tell me."

Arthur shook his head. "I'm not telling you to stop. It's the one thing you have to do because you want to. Do it for yourself or you'll end up back where you started."

"Then I'll stop," Merlin told him. "I'll stop. I don't ever want to ever go back there again. And I hurt you all the time and I hate it! I'll stop, I swear. I'm done now. I'm done. I'm going to be good from now on."

Arthur didn't know if he should believe him but he nodded anyway. He bent to kiss Merlin's forehead, once, twice, three times, because his chest was still aching and because he couldn't wrap his arms around Merlin and cry as well.

"If you want, I'll stay here. I'll help you," he promised instead.

It had been hard. Arthur rang the doctors he knew and took their advice on detox. He rang substance abuse support groups and alcohol anonymous. He visited rehab centres, and he collected lots of literature from psychiatrists on the subject of depression and bipolar disorders and on grief and coping mechanisms.

And all that wasn't as hard for him as he knew it was for Merlin.

It took two weeks and those were two of the worst weeks in both their lives. But by the end, Merlin looked healthier than he ever did before for as long as Arthur had known him. He was eating regular meals again, and gaining weight, his skin was a healthy glow, and he had even been visiting the gym regularly.

The improvements each took an effort Arthur was never sure Merlin was prepared to give, but Merlin would surprise him every single time. By the end of the two weeks, Arthur had lined up a job for Merlin at the PR firm controlled by the Pendragon Corporation and had talked Morgana into being Merlin's first client.

By the end of the two weeks, Sofia had been livid.

When his wife asked where he was, he lied and said he was called away on business. When business could no longer be his excuse, he blamed fatigue and said he needed a small break. Each time Sofia rang or e-mailed or texted, she began with threats and ended with a request. Each time Arthur looked over at Merlin curled into the loveseat reading a book, or collapsed in the bedroom in an exhausted sleep, or sitting across him at the dining table sipping orange juice, Arthur felt a slice of guilt and he would give in to whatever she wanted.

When she asked to move to Australia in a few months time to get familiar with the photographers there and their preferred modelling style, Arthur negotiated that if she allowed him two more weeks away he would sit and seriously contemplate such a huge life change.

At the end of that first month Arthur knew he had to return home. And he knew his wife was waiting for him in a very displeased state.

Five months later, he was sitting across a table from Merlin at an Italian restaurant telling Merlin about the job at the PR firm, and having to break the news that he and Sofia were moving to Australia at the end of the week.

All the blood seemed to drain from Merlin's face at the news. Arthur felt his body go cold at Merlin's reaction.

"You're leaving?"

The 'me' that was implied at the end of the question, rang in Arthur's mind. He hid his own pain from Merlin because Merlin was busy falling apart for the two of them. Merlin's hands trembled. Arthur reached out to briefly squeeze them. When Merlin pulled away, Arthur's hands burned like they'd been scorched.

"You've been good, haven't you?" he asked.

Merlin nodded.

"Then you'll be okay even when I'm gone. And no matter how far away from you I am, you can always ring me or e-mail or text or anything and I'll come back if you need me."

The words weren't enough, the promise was never going to be enough, but it was all he had to offer. Still, when Merlin looked away, closed his eyes to hide the tears Arthur already saw, clenched his fingers into a fist, and finally nodded, Arthur wanted to do more than make promises. If he might never see his best friend again, he wanted to do something that would ease the ache for both of them.

"Do you still wear that chain your father left you?"

Arthur knew he did. Had seen glimpses of it on a few occasions when Merlin was half naked in his presence, but Merlin had worn it even more during the two weeks of detox, and Arthur hoped he hadn't taken it off since then.

Merlin reach up to removed the chain and he dropped it into Arthur's palm without question. So silent and so obedient. So beautiful to Arthur in his sadness.

Arthur took off his wedding ring, laced it through the chain and pressed them into Merlin's palm until Merlin's fingers closed around it. He waited for Merlin to put the chain back on, the weight of the gold band resting against his heart, Arthur hoped.

"Sofia will -" Merlin began to protest but Arthur cut him off.

"She won't even notice. She doesn't even wear hers because of her photoshoots," Arthur explained. "And if she notices then I'll tell her I lost it or it got left behind in the move."

"She'll notice," Merlin said.

"It doesn't matter if she does. I want you to wear it." Arthur looked into Merlin's deep blue eyes. "Don't ever take it off. You can give it back to me the next time I'm back in London, but for now I want you to wear it every day and remember that I'm here and that I'm proud of you and that you're important to me and always will be no matter how far away from you I am."

Arthur could see the ring now from where he sat watching Merlin on the couch. It had slipped out from behind Merlin's shirt during a vigorous bout of vacuuming and Merlin had let it remain dangling on its chain, no longer hidden.

When Merlin re-entered the living room again after his day of tidying up, Arthur's eyes were drawn to the glint of gold.

_'Mine,'_ he thought as Merlin approached, and he wasn't just thinking about the wedding ring.

"You kept it," he teased lightly when Merlin sat on the floor in front of him. "You still wear it."

Merlin ducked his head. "I can't take it off. I tried to once and it made my chest hurt. It reminds me that I have to be good for you. I want to be good for you so much, and it helps to wear it, and see it, and feel it."

Arthur nodded as he met Merlin's gaze. "Good. Don't take it off. Ever."

Merlin's eyes softened and he smiled as he briefly caressed the ring. _'Mine,'_ Arthur thought again. He smiled back, having so many words and desires burn inside and not knowing how to tell Merlin any of them.

"What do you need?" Merlin asked softly, almost shyly. "If you're hungry, I can fix us something to eat."

"I'm not. I'm just mostly tired," Arthur told him.

Merlin considered this for a few seconds then he rose from where he sat and without another words left to disappear into the bathroom. When he returned he was holding a brush in his hand.

"I can brush your hair if you'll let me," he said, cheeks turning red. "It'll help you to fall asleep. And if you want I'll make us dinner while you sleep."

"Merlin, nobody is going to see me to care if my hair is a mess or not," Arthur responded.

Merlin smiled. "It'll make you feel better. And I want to do it, please."

When Arthur nodded, Merlin sat down on the other side of the couch. With a tug, he pulled Arthur down until Arthur's head rested in his lap, the rest of Arthur curled onto the chair, knees bent, and the fingers of one hand gently caressed Merlin's knees through Merlin's pants.

The glide of the brush through his hair and the gentle caress of Merlin's fingers after each stroke, soothed the knots that had formed in Arthur's stomach from the memories of Sofia and Merlin that he hadn't been able to stop reliving all day.

"Thank you for coming," he whispered. "I know you hate flying, especially on your own. I know it must have been hard to stay clean all these months, years, without me there. Thank you for all of it."

"I want to be good for you," Merlin whispered back. "It's all I want. All I've ever wanted. I'm sorry I'm so used, so dirty, and broken inside. I wish I wasn't, but I am and I'm sorry for that. I'm trying to be better. I want to be, so you can stop hurting when you look at me."

Arthur turned to press a kiss to Merlin's thigh, before resting his hand back onto the same spot.

"You're a good man. You've always been. I saw it ever day when I looked at you. I saw what made you so broken and I see now what makes you whole."

Merlin traced the shell of Arthur's ear, followed the path down the side of his neck to the curve of his jaw, across his cheek.

"You make me whole," Merlin pointed out. "I'd do anything for you. Anything you ask, no strings attached and no questions. Tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it. Anything."

_'Anything...'_ Arthur wondered.

But he sighed, savouring the moment instead of trying to complicate it.

"Just let me sleep for now," he responded. "I just need to miss the glimpses of good that I sometimes saw in her, and to work through my regrets, and to mourn for all the things I'll never have now. Just let me have you here. You help to make it all seem worth it. And I've missed you, more than you know."

It was too much said, too many desires expressed all at once. Too much too soon, Arthur knew. But the words had just fallen out of his mouth and he hadn't been able, didn't have the energy anymore, to keep them buried.

Except for the one sentence he kept hidden, cringing as the emotions and the ache and all the want and wishes he had, tangled themselves up and laced though the words. And those words scratched lines into his heart, as Merlin continued to brush through his hair and stroke his cheek, and murmured words that were meant to soothe the pain.

_'I love you,'_ Arthur whispered silently from so deep inside, it seemed to come from his soul. _'I love you, Merlin.'_

When the ache finally subsided, Arthur fell asleep to Merlin's careful, feather-soft kisses on his cheek and on his shoulder and on his fingers.

.

xxx...TBC...xxx


	3. Chapter 3of4

**Warning: **_AU (modern), language, substance abuse, graphic imagery_

**Pairing: **_Merlin/Arthur_

**Rating:** _R_

**Inspired by: **_One Real Thing__ by Anah Crow and Dianne Fox_

**Summary:** The course of true love never did run smooth. Arthur and Merlin knows this all too well.

**Author: _Spirit_**

**A/N: **Chapter has been edited to comply with rating. If you'd like to read the original NC-17 version you can find it on my LJ at coeur-de-ma-vie. Please be warned that this isn't your typical Merlin/Arthur fic. The relationship is and will be shown to be somewhat different from the usual. It isn't disturbing, just different. All I ask is that you'll give it a chance and hopefully, by the end, you'll understand it and enjoy reading the fic as I've enjoyed writing it.

* * *

><p><em><strong>.<strong>_

_**.**_

**ALL THE COMPLEXITIES**

.

.

_You see everything, you see every part  
>You see all my light and you love my dark <em>

_And you're still here._

_Everything__ by Alanis Morissette_

_._

_**Part Three**_

.

Merlin couldn't sleep.

It wasn't sleeping on the pristine white couch that he had a problem with, as he had remedied that situation by assuming his usual position on the floor at the base of the bed once Arthur settled in for the night. It was Arthur, and how close he was, and how much Merlin had missed having Arthur in the same room, the same city, with him. It was Merlin, and not knowing how he was going to deal when he had to leave Arthur behind again. He hated how he felt lying in the dark, listening to Arthur's soft breaths as Arthur slept, and already aching with the pain of missing Arthur.

When Arthur was better, and God how Merlin needed him to get better so badly, this would all end and they would go back to being best friends who lived oceans apart. Merlin knew he would wake up from this beautiful dream where Arthur was here, safe, and close enough to touch, close enough to see.

And then Arthur would meet someone else, someone who didn't crash their car possibly on purpose in an effort to kill them both, and Merlin would disappear again.

_'I should. I should disappear. I should let him be happy. Need him to be happy, even without me.'_ Merlin thought miserably.

Since sleep wouldn't come, Merlin opted for a distraction.

Grabbing his phone he dialled Morgana's personal mobile number. In the dark he could just make out Arthur lying on the bed and even though it was risky, Merlin moved the phone away from his ear long enough to lean across the bed and press a kiss to Arthur's cheek. Arthur smelled so good, his skin felt so nice against Merlin's lips that Merlin wanted to kiss him again and again and lose himself in tasting Arthur and touching Arthur.

Merlin's insides clenched into a tight knot and he physically had to wrench himself away with a tiny gasp. It didn't do to kiss Arthur without permission. It was too much of a slippery slide. And Merlin knew it was too easy to forget himself. Too easy to offer up himself like he had done so many times with so many other men and women. It would be different with Arthur, but Arthur would probably just see Merlin being Merlin as usual.

_'Want you. I shouldn't though.'_ The thought stung, made the back of Merlin's throat burn with unshed tears, made Merlin choke, and he had to escape.

"Morgana?" he whispered into the phone when he was safely in the living room. "Morgana, he's okay. I swear."

Across the line her sigh of relief almost swept him away.

"Oh good!" she exclaimed. "I thought when you rang that it was bad news and he had a turn for the worse or something. Scared me half to death you shit!"

Merlin chuckled, pulling his knees up to his chest where he sat on the floor with his back to the infamous white leather couch. Even through the laughter though he could tell when she heard the tears he was still trying to hold on to.

"Merlin?" Her voice had gone worried again.

"Sorry babe," he responded quickly. "It's late and I'm being fucking weak about everything. I guess this is the scare and the shock taking over now that I know he's not seriously hurt or bleeding in some forsaken hospital room or at the bottom of a ravine."

"You can you know. You're always so damn strong about everything. I don't know how you get through even a single day and yet you do and then you get up the next day and do it all over again and pull me, pull the rest of your clients, pull Freya up with you."

_'When?'_ Merlin wanted to scream, but the truth was that he knew it was true.

It was a relief to realize that he was only ever like this with Arthur. He loved it that way, loved knowing that Arthur kept him safe and fed and healthy and could look at him and know instantly when Merlin needed anything. Merlin didn't have to think and be confident and be switched on all the time around Arthur. He could collapse and break down and say all his fears aloud and Arthur would listen and Arthur would wrap him up in strength and Arthur would take charge and fix the broken bits.

But for everyone else, for everywhere else, it was comforting to know that he could be strong on his own. Comforting to know that he didn't lose himself or stopped being himself, or started unravelling in the worst ways again.

_'Rule number one Merlin, is no more drugs. You have to stop trying to escape from everything. I don't know what I'd do if you were ever truly gone.'_

Merlin had known Morgana for most of his life just as he had known Arthur. But she had always just been the step-sister in the background who did anything she could for her father's attention. The day Merlin met her officially as her PR she had been cold and distant, wanting nothing to do with the charity case her brother had burdened her with.

Merlin had taken one look at her, at the way she sat with her agent, the tension in her shoulders and the way she could barely look at the man without her face pinching into a scowl. And Merlin had known right then what her secret was.

_'Rule number two Merlin, is no more anonymous sex. If you meet someone you want to pull into your bed, you have to at least know their middle name by the time you wake up the next morning. I'm not saying you have to be a saint, but you have to stop giving them everything. You need to keep something to survive as well.'_

Sleeping with her agent wasn't the worst thing she could have done, but when she wanted to advance her career and leave the man behind he had threatened to go to the papers with the scandal of how she had practically fucked her way to the top. Merlin, having had some experience with the whole fucking bit, had known exactly what they each needed to hear and to do to part ways with the least amount of figurative bloodshed.

When Morgana landed runway shows in Prague, she had hated to let him go, but then she introduced him to Freya, and Merlin knew she saw right away that it was better that way.

Freya was anorexic and Freya was addicted to cocaine. Merlin knew all about addictions and had no room to judge, so he didn't. He showed up more than once at 2 AM to hold her hair back when she stumbled into her hotel room after a movie premiere and just had to purge. And he drove her to rehab and then rehab again, and then rehab again, until finally she stopped craving the drug so much that she could function without it. Then he convinced her that food was just food, and not evil.

He stayed with Freya even while he kept being assigned or recommended to other difficult high profile clients. He had regular clients too that needed nothing more than good press once in a while or good marketing if he saw fit to dabble on that end. But he had definitely gained a sort of unspoken reputation after three years, of being the PR with some serious experience in handling difficult, tricky clients with unsavoury lifestyles. Merlin knew intrinsically how to be there for them, remembering how he had gotten through similar situations.

There wasn't anything they could do, he had told more than one of them on more than one occasion, that he hadn't actually tried a few times and then some himself. He showed up with chicken soup when one of them was sick, got drenched in rain at an outdoor concert for another, stood in line to be the first to get an autographed copy of another one's book, gave relationship advice, took away a loaded pistol from the temple of another, held hands, gave hugs, smiled until his jaw fucking ached, begged on behalf of and instead of practically all of them, and loved every second of his job and what he did.

And he missed Arthur, thought of Arthur, needed Arthur through all of it.

_'Rule number three Merlin, pay attention because this one is important to me. You need to wake up every morning, safe, and you need to fall asleep knowing where you're putting your head. You need to keep waking up for me, and if it ever gets too hard, then tell me and I'll wake up with you for as long as I have to.'_

Merlin's heart hurt.

"I'm not strong at all," he told Morgana when the silence became unbearable. "Not even a little bit. I just do what I do and it works out all right."

"I think you're stronger than you know," Morgana told him.

Merlin closed his eyes and counted all the way to four before he gave up and just said it out loud.

"I want him better Morgana. I hate knowing that she hurt him so much and that he's here because of what she did. I don't know how to make him better. Fuck, I feel so useless! How many times did he help me and now I can't make it stop hurting for him."

"I think," she paused, and seemed to rearranged her words even as she said them. "I think you being there is all he needs to get better."

"I don't know what you mean."

Merlin's voice sounded sad and tired, even to his own ears. He couldn't imagine what Morgana thought on her end of the conversation. At first it seemed like Morgana was going to drop the subject. She didn't though.

"The two of you make sense together. I know my brother. I know that you bring the world into focus for him. Like he fights harder for you than anyone else. He would walk over broken glass to save you. I didn't have to be there all the time to know what he was doing or trying to do for you. I didn't always like you for the shit you put him through but I swear I think he's happiest when he knows you're happy. You're the one that matters the most."

Merlin didn't have words to agree or disagree with all that.

He closed his eyes, rested his head against his knees and let her words wash over him like a tide. Even after she whispered for him to get some rest and that they could talk later, even after she hung up, Merlin kept the phone cradled against his ear, sad and aching and tired and worried and with so many other emotions that there were no names for. And none of them told him how to make Sofia's death and her betrayal any less complicated for Merlin to understand long enough to help Arthur.

"Merlin."

Merlin's eyes snapped open and he looked up almost guiltily. He had dreamt his name, spoken in that voice, so many nights that he was half afraid he'd fallen asleep again. But Arthur stood at the doorway of the living room, shirtless, wearing only a low-riding pyjama bottom and looking at him worriedly.

"Sorry," Merlin apologized."Didn't mean to wake you. Just wanted to ring Morgana."

"You should be sleeping. Jet lag is a bitch."

Merlin couldn't argue with that so he didn't. He just shrugged instead, and stood. He couldn't take his eyes off Arthur. He was too tired, needed it too much to fight it, and Arthur looked so good, so strong with broad shoulders and gently corded muscles everywhere, and Merlin didn't have the strength to tear his gaze away from this beautiful man he ached to be with.

Arthur sighed and held out his arms. "Come here."

Merlin moved before he gave his body permission to do so. Arthur was true north for him and he couldn't tell his feet to stop moving any more than he could tell his lungs to stop breathing, at that point. He was close, close enough for Arthur to reach out and gently cup his face and lightly run a thumb under his eyes. Close enough to see his reflection in Arthur's eyes.

"You've been crying." Arthur looked perplexed. It made Merlin smile. "What've you been crying for?"

It was too deliciously easy for Merlin's tired mind to supply the cliché and yet, true response.

"I haven't been crying," he said, though he had been by the end of the phone call.

But it didn't count if it was silent tears. It didn't count if he was just being a girl and nothing was actually wrong. Not when so many other times there had been.

Arthur gave him an exasperated look.

"Merlin, don't lie. I can see the tear tracks on your cheek." Arthur took a step closer. His hands, still gentle where they held Merlin's face, prevented Merlin from taking a step back. "I bet I could taste the salt on your lips."

That was it. That was all the warning that Merlin got before Arthur pressed his lips against Merlin's and Merlin's heart stopped beating for a split second.

_'Fuck.'_

Arthur tasted so good, so fucking good. Merlin knew he'd never want to taste anyone else's lips again. Arthur's breath was hot, his mouth was soft and gentle, hesitant but firm. The way Arthur sucked at his bottom lip made Merlin's knees weak. He couldn't help the moan that rose from his core in response to the quick nip and the languid lick that followed.

Merlin's fingers clenched into fists at his side. He wanted to pull Arthur closer, pull Arthur into his body until Arthur was buried inside him so deep he would be branded, claimed, as belonging to only this one man forever.

When Arthur slipped his tongue into Merlin's mouth it was so close and yet miles too far from what Merlin wanted that Merlin began to tremble. Arthur slipped one hand away from his face, wrapped it around his waist instead and pulled Merlin closer. Until their bodies were pressed against each other, and Merlin could feel Arthur's erection like a hot iron burning into his.

Merlin needed it so much he didn't stop to think. He moaned into the kiss even more and moved his hips, sliding his aching hardness against Arthur's, writhing against Arthur like a cat in heat, needing and wanting more. It felt so good, so right, that Merlin couldn't think, couldn't speak, couldn't do more than lose himself in how deliciously good it felt, how good Arthur tasted, how much he loved how beautifully they fit together.

When the realization came of what he was doing, Merlin's whole body froze.

_'Fuck!'_ he thought in panic.

The shame came, and the confusion. It hadn't ever felt this good just kissing another man before. He hadn't ever gotten so turned on by lips on his. But this was Arthur, and Merlin craved Arthur. Only, Merlin knew he shouldn't. Arthur didn't deserve to have Merlin tainting him with his used body. Merlin had done this with so many other men and so many other women before. He wasn't special anymore the way Arthur was special to him. And he had taken their kiss from something simple to something burning and sexual and raw with desire.

Every cell in Merlin's body hurt as hot tears welled into his eyes, streaming down his cheeks. He collapsed onto the floor at Arthur's feet, head tucked into his knees as he curled into himself and tried to hide the tears that wouldn't stop flowing.

Merlin wanted Arthur so much he felt like he'd been set on fire.

The realization that he didn't deserve him and he likely never would, made the shame flow even more. What was wrong with him, Merlin wondered, that he fell apart at one single kiss. _No boundaries. No walls._ But Arthur was his boundaries. Arthur was his rock. Arthur was his walls. And if he fucked this up between them Merlin knew he would vibrate apart into smoke and nothing.

"What did I do?" Arthur asked sounding hurt and confused and it just made Merlin's tears flow more. But then Arthur was kneeling behind him, and he wrapped Merlin up tightly in strong arms that kept Merlin from tearing apart.

Arthur murmured into Merlin's ear over and over until the world stopped shaking and Merlin could get his emotions under control. Until the words started to penetrate Merlin's brain, Arthur's soothing, caressing cadence seeping into and around his soul. Until they were all he heard and he couldn't stop hearing them resonate inside his body even if he'd gone deaf in that moment. Soft, and gentle, and soothing.

"I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry."

...

Merlin wanted to kick himself and when he was done with that he figured he would have another go at it.

He had actually hidden himself in the bathroom in embarrassment and one hour later was still wondering if he could risk coming out. _What the fuck! What the fuck was that out there?_ It was pent up emotions. It might even have been a bit of jet lag and being extra tired. It was seeing Arthur again after years and remembering their past. It was dealing with his frustrations and his desires head on instead of deflecting as he had done internally for years. For all that though, to Merlin, it was a nightmare. He was supposed to show Arthur how strong he was, how independent he could be, how he could take care of himself now, and take care of Arthur like he wanted. Instead he had a near nervous breakdown at their first kiss.

Merlin groaned, ran his fingers through his hair and wanted to hit his head against something solid for a second.

"Kill me now," he growled to his reflection. "No wonder Arthur more than anyone else probably thinks you're a nut-job."

Arthur had kissed him and it had felt so good, but Merlin knew it wasn't real. Not that it wasn't reality and hadn't happened, because of course Merlin wasn't delusional, but that they were in a loaded situation where Arthur was hurting and Merlin was here. When Arthur was better and not hurting so much anymore, Merlin wondered if something like the kiss would ever happen again.

_'Anything he wants, if it makes him feel better,'_ he thought. _'I want him. I'll take anything, please.'_

Merlin stared at his reflection in the mirror, deep into his own sad eyes. He could see it playing like a movie in his mind. What he would do if Arthur touched him the way he wanted. Arthur, holding him. Arthur's hand on his body, slipping between his legs to stroke his cock. Arthur climbing on top of him, weight pressing Merlin into the mattress as he slid inside of Merlin's tight channel, filling him, fucking him.

"Stop," Merlin groaned to himself. He clenched his fingers into a fist trying to fight how much he needed all that. "Whatever _he_ wants. Not you."

Merlin hunched over the sink and pressed his forehead onto the marble counter. He needed to get his body under control, needed to at least appear calm so Arthur didn't think he was still falling apart. Not after how far they'd come.

"Hey."

The knock on the bathroom door startled Merlin and he looked at it rattle as Arthur knocked again, softer this time.

"I know you're hiding and that's fine. I mean who wouldn't want to set up permanent residence near a toilet, but I swear if I don't take a piss soon the floor is going to have something to say about it. Not that I'm rushing you or anything."

Merlin snorted, rolled his eyes, and was still chuckling when he opened the door to see Arthur lounging against the wall.

"Fucker," he muttered with a smirk, and Arthur smiled back.

"Got you out didn't it?" Arthur shrugged. "Besides I really do need to use the loo, and you didn't seem to have any plans to stop hiding any time soon."

Merlin ducked his head, feeling his cheeks burn.

"I swear, I actually do get through some days without bursting into tears. Months at a time sometimes. Yet, I've managed to cry every day since I got here. Sorry."

Arthur reached out to tilt Merlin's face back up with his fingertips. All signs of amusement were gone. Mostly Merlin saw worry and concern, reflected at him from Arthur's grey eyes. _'When will I stop hurting this man?' _It was a look he knew all too well and it made Merlin want to scream in protest.

"Are you all right though?" Arthur asked, breaking the silence.

Merlin sighed, and nodded.

"Good." Arthur nodded as well, then, moving his fingers, he indicated the bed. "Go lie down. You should rest."

Merlin retreated to the bed as Arthur slipped into the bathroom. By the time Arthur emerged Merlin was holding a bottle of oil in his hand, as he sat on the floor at the base of the bed waiting for Arthur.

"Merlin!" Arthur growled when he saw him.

Merlin raised a hand in protest. "I'm not tired. I'm fine. I've gone without sleep for much longer than this before. Staying awake a while longer isn't going to do any damage not already done."

Arthur walked over to crouch in front of Merlin. He reached across to touch the side of Merlin's face so gently that Merlin almost thought that he was imagining the caress. A part of him wanted to lean into the feather light stroke and beg for more. But he ducked his head carefully away and out of the touch, because it ached to have Arthur touch him, and Merlin could hardly bear to stand the need that curled in his stomach.

"You are allowed on the bed Merlin," Arthur chided. "You'd probably sleep better on the damn thing than on the floor anyway."

Merlin held up the bottle. "I'm not tired, honestly. But...maybe...I want to give you a massage. Please, can I? You were in a car accident, and I want to take care of you. And if it were me, you'd make sure I was healing properly and that there was no muscle damage or whatever. Please. I just want...let me please..."

When his voice trailed off Arthur looked at him with narrowed eyes. Merlin held the gaze, not flinching when Arthur's eyes darted around, searching for something Merlin didn't have a clue if his own face was answering.

"Will you promise to go to sleep if I let you?"

Merlin nodded and smiled. Arthur didn't smile back.

"Merlin," he said and his voice held that commanding note that made Merlin's toes curl and his heart race in anticipation. "I want you to sleep on the bed with me tonight."

Merlin didn't have the strength to fight how much he loved that tone and the meaning behind it. Like the fact that he knew Arthur cared about him, and wanted the best for him, and wanted to keep him safe, and wanted to protect him. Like the way he knew he belonged to Arthur, and only Arthur. For as long as he lived he would do anything Arthur told him to, as long as he always got to be near him.

He reached up to his chest and held on to the ring that dangled on a chain there. He felt the metal bite into his palm and into his fingers and the ache was delicious and felt so real to him.

He couldn't tear his eyes away. Couldn't do more than speak the words, branded on his heart, that said everything he couldn't yet say.

"Yes Arthur," he whispered.

...

"Tell me please. Tell me what happened the night of the accident."

Arthur was lying on his stomach on the bed, hands crossed beneath his head, his face turned in the direction where Merlin knelt at his side. Merlin looked at the broad expanse of Arthur's back that stretched out before him and he had to swallow down the way his mouth watered at the mental images that flooded his mind. The things he would do given the opportunity to kiss and lick his way along the curve of Arthur's spine.

"Nothing happened. It was just an accident."

Arthur's voice was quiet, as if he was holding on to all his emotions and didn't want Merlin to hear his pain. It made Merlin ache and ache for him. Made him want to kiss all the pain away.

"Tell me please," Merlin said again. "I want to know anyway."

Arthur stayed silent, staring past Merlin to the other side of the room and Merlin knew he wasn't really looking at anything in the present anymore. He was focussed on the past, on the night Sofia died. Merlin didn't know what to do. He felt so helpless.

So he poured the massage oil onto Arthur's back and slowly started to knead the tense muscles there. And he waited. If Arthur said Merlin didn't need to know about that night, Merlin would accept it, forget about it, and never ask Arthur again. Whatever Arthur wanted, needed, to not be so sad anymore.

Still, when Arthur finally spoke, Merlin's fingers momentarily lost their rhythmic movement, and he felt relieved. Not grateful or happy that Arthur was going to share. Just relieved that Arthur trusted him to know. Trusted to talk to him about it.

"She never liked you. I bet that's no surprise," Arthur told him. "After all she used to say to you and about you. I think she hated you more when you got better."

"Never liked her either," Merlin muttered. "Feeling was mutual. But you knew that."

Arthur sighed. "Yes. I did know. I'm not saying I don't know why the two of you never got along. Like on my wedding day when you showed up after she had so rudely uninvited you, as if I was ever going to let that happen. Such venom, you know. She always had that ability to shock me. I could never understand how she could be so hateful to you."

It hurt Merlin to remember Arthur's wedding.

The day had passed by in a haze filled with Merlin crying so hard his whole body would shake each time. And then he'd summon the courage to ring Arthur's number, and not have the words he needed to say, and have to hang up. And then he was crying again, couldn't seem to stop long enough to breathe, to be strong.

When he showed up at the wedding his eyes were red and his face was pale and everything was a numb haze and the words that were said in the church, the congratulations being shouted afterwards, all felt like they were ripping into him. He hadn't been drunk. He hadn't been high. The one time in his life then that he was stone cold sober and he looked like he was about to collapse at any second.

Sofia had spotted him at the reception first. Merlin had been contemplating whether he had the stomach to go over to the happy couple and force out a smile when Sofia had looked in his direction. How she hadn't spotted him at the ceremony, Merlin had no idea. When she laid eyes on him then, all her camouflage fell away and in that second all he saw was how ugly and hateful and spiteful and angry she was.

Merlin had looked to Arthur then. He saw the way his best friend's jaw tensed in anticipation of something unpleasant brewing. Merlin only remembered thinking how she was Arthur's wife now and she should come first. He had turned to leave, it was obvious, but she couldn't let him walk away, couldn't let it go.

"Get out!" She had screamed at the top of her lungs from halfway across the room, stopping all discussion, all happiness, stopping every other sound in the room until she was the centre of everyone's attention. "Get out of my wedding!"

Merlin turned back around to face her, and snapped quietly. "I was leaving anyway. You can just forget I was here. It's how you wanted it anyway."

"How did you even get in?" She shrieked, still so loudly that Merlin's ears burned.

"Your husband invited me," he told her still much more quiet than she was being. "You know, my best friend since we were children."

She laughed, throwing Arthur a savage glare before she strode over to where Merlin was standing. When she spoke her voice was no longer loud. Instead it was pitched perfectly to allow everyone to hear her words and still pretend to be discreet.

"Not any more, you filthy shit. Whatever you've been doing for him to get him to help you, it ends tonight. You can go take off your clothes for some other man. It's not like we all don't know you do it anyway. But he's my husband now and that means you don't get to sink your nasty, perverted, sick, little claws into him any longer."

"Sofia!"

Merlin jumped at Arthur's shout following so closely to Sofia's pointed little speech. But Sofia ignored the reproach.

"You get off on it don't you?" she asked Merlin with narrowed eyes and a twist to her lips. "You love the way it feels to have him run to you whenever you call."

Merlin could almost feel himself cracking inside. A part of him, the part of him paying attention, the part of him not too numb to feel the way her words sliced into him so close to the truth, that part of him wanted to wrap his fingers around her throat.

But Merlin knew he couldn't fight the truth because there were days when it was exactly as she thought. So many times he'd done what she said. So many times he had deliberately done something rash, something stupid, something dangerous, just to have Arthur come to him. Sometimes he felt like he was drowning and only Arthur holding him, Arthur rocking him and whispering to him, could make the pain better. He more than got off on it, he knew. He craved Arthur. He craved Arthur like he craved all the other drugs, but they had nothing on how much he needed his best friend.

"I said I was leaving," he told her softly. "I shouldn't have come."

She grabbed his arm, nails cutting into his flesh. Her performance, he could tell, wasn't over. But this time she kept the words between them, showing that she did know just how to speak softly.

"You don't get it. He'll never want you. He'll fuck you now, and he'll hold you now and he'll tell you anything he thinks will get him more, now, but at the end of the day he doesn't really want you. You've let so many other men touch you, fuck with you, you have so many things wrong with you that he'll leave you and you'll always just be a strung out, drug addict, who needs to sell himself for his next high."

Even as she said the words Merlin knew they weren't true, but still just the idea that they could be, even though he knew Arthur didn't want him now or ever, it still hurt to hear. There was hate and then there was being despised and this woman despised him beyond anything he could ever fix.

"Let go of him." Arthur's voice seemed to echo from somewhere far away, even though they were barely whispered into Sofia's ear and Merlin could only just make them out himself. "Let go or I swear Sofia I will break your fingers one by one if I have to."

"Yes, take his side," she snapped back. "It's my wedding day and he has no right to be here ruining it for me. For us."

"It's my wedding day too," Arthur pointed out. "I wanted him here. And what you just said to him is enough for me to seriously consider an annulment. My lawyers can have it drawn up before your head even hits your pillow tonight. I suggest if you want to stay on my good side for the rest of this disaster of a reception that you take your hands off him, and you smile, and you apologize to our guests, and you act with a bit more decorum. I'm going to walk Merlin out and you're going to let me tell my best friend goodnight properly."

Merlin could still feel the wave of hatred that she channelled in his direction as she walked away. Even now, sitting in a room massaging Arthur, even now while she was dead, Merlin felt like he could hear her screams of anger from the grave.

"She tried to kill you." It wasn't a question. Merlin suspected the answer anyway.

Arthur laughed without humour. "You would think so. There were days I could tell she was truthfully considering it. But she needed my money too much. Needed it for her career. As you know, her career meant everything to her."

"And when you left? When you divorced her?" Merlin gently prodded.

Arthur shrugged. "Nothing happened. It was the least amount of drama she every did anything with. She packed her things and she left. The screaming and the shouting and the crying came later. Came the day of the accident. I never would have thought she could have lasted that long."

Maybe guilt had kept her silent. Maybe shame. Merlin didn't think so though. Sofia had probably just been scheming on how to get Arthur back on side.

"The day of the accident I went to meet her at a café. I sent my driver away when she asked me to drive around with her in her car. Said she didn't like the way everyone was staring. I slipped into the passenger seat and we went around the block a few times. She was calm for about five minutes, then she stopped being calm."

"Was that when it happened? While she was shouting?"

Arthur considered the question, and Merlin let him, giving up on the massage to instead sit cross legged on the bed and wait to hear the rest of the story. When Arthur seemed to be struggling with piecing the information together, Merlin stopped him.

"Just tell me what you remember, if you can," he requested.

Arthur took a deep breath.

"I remember she was screaming at me reminding me about how much we loved each other and how our marriage had been working before she confessed to having a string of lovers on the side. Then I remember the tires squealing and the car spinning, then flipping, then rolling, and when we stopped it was so damn quiet I couldn't hear anything. It felt like I had gone deaf, like my brain took a short break, nothing looked real or felt real at all. And I couldn't move because I was pinned down by the dashboard. And I thought at the time it had gone through my chest because there was an unbearably sharp pain there. I was physically checking myself for any other injuries when I snapped out of my daze and remembered Sofia. I hadn't looked over at her before. I know it sounds awful with her sitting next to me, but I honestly forgot that anyone else in the world existed but me."

Merlin reached out to silently take Arthur's hand. Arthur seemed so surprised that he stared at their entwined fingers for a few seconds longer than necessary before he finally finished what he had been saying.

"The moment I glanced over at her I knew she was dead. And I sort of knew that she hadn't planned on dying. I hadn't either, but she lost the bet. I don't know what caused the accident. My lawyer tells me it's being chalked up to a sharp bend, gravel on the road and pure bad luck. But remember we'd been around the block a few times before and it had been fine. I don't think she planned on killing me. If at all it would have been an impulsive decision. If it was a conscious decision on her part, she gambled wrong."

"I'm sorry," Merlin whispered as he kissed the tips of Arthur's fingers over and over, trying to press his words into Arthur's skin. "I'm sorry you had to go through that all alone."

Arthur looked at Merlin, his grey eyes softening as he smiled. Merlin wanted to press his forehead to Arthur's throat, press his lips to Arthur's chest over Arthur's heart. But he couldn't even smile back.

"You've been worried." Arthur leaned across the distance resting his forehead against Merlin's. "I know you've been worried, I can see it."

"Of course I've been. You almost died," Merlin breathed.

Arthur chuckled softly. "Bruised ribs never killed anyone. I was lucky that I came out of the accident with scratches and a bit banged up. It was a lot worse for Sofia."

Scratches. Merlin wanted to laugh or sob, he wasn't sure which. He had seen the fresh scars on Arthur's back, could pick out the new lines on Arthur's chest from earlier, and though there weren't a lot, they looked like they'd been deep enough to really hurt.

Arthur pressed a chain of kisses along the side of Merlin's jaw and on his neck and on his shoulder. And for once, Merlin didn't have the strength to deny either of them the comfort of the gesture. He wanted to offer more. He wanted to wrap himself around Arthur and swear that Arthur would never have to face something like that alone again.

"I'm not her," Arthur whispered into Merlin's ear. And Merlin knew he didn't mean Sofia. "I'm not going to die from sadness. I'm not going to leave you to pick up the pieces of my life. You're not going to walk in here and find me with my wrist open or having swallowed all the pills I could find in this place. I promise that I won't give up and I won't kill myself, not after having lived through the accident in the first place."

Merlin couldn't breathe. His chest hurt and hurt. The fist that was clenched in his gut tightened so painfully the only sound he could make was a sob.

Arthur pulled him close, into a hug that was so tight and felt so good that Merlin could only hold on and cling as tightly back as he dared to Arthur. _'Nothing in this world,' _he swore to himself. _'Will ever get me to stop wanting you near to me.'_ But he could only take what Arthur had on offer, and he didn't ever want Arthur to feel like he owed Merlin for anything.

"And what about Sofia?" Merlin asked.

Arthur pulled away to look into Merlin's eyes. "She's gone. Was gone, long before she died that night. I don't think I ever really had her. When we got divorced it felt like something that had been written in the book of time. Inevitable. Like her death was inevitable. I can't explain it. I just know she wasn't happy with me. I was never, would never have been, enough for her."

"I'm sorry she died, even though I can't say I miss her."

Arthur smiled sadly.

"Me too, but it's over now," he said, brushing his lips across Merlin's cheek, making Merlin shiver inside. "You need to sleep. You're shaking."

Merlin looked to the floor wistfully. It would be so easy to slip off the bed and let Arthur fall asleep in peace. It wasn't as if Merlin was going to be able to fall asleep. Not with Arthur so close.

Arthur, who was always so good at reading him anyway, growled and gently nipped at Merlin's ear, causing Merlin to laugh out loud in surprise. He didn't have the willpower to really fight when Arthur pulled him down into strong, warm arms, cradling him.

Merlin was drowning in how amazing Arthur smelled, of musk and spice and sweat. He struggled, already hard, already aching to slide between Arthur's legs and rock their bodies together. It was embarrassing how quickly he could go from zero to half mast just by being close to Arthur.

"Baby please," Arthur whispered to him, not making the situation any easier for Merlin, who had to fight back a moan at the sexy, pleading note in Arthur's voice. "It's not going to kill you to spend one night in my bed."

Merlin stopped struggling because it was inevitable, and because struggling was only going to make Arthur twig to his arousal that much faster.

"Merlin go to sleep," Arthur growled.

Merlin took a deep breath, sighed in exasperation, then gave up and did exactly what he wanted. He laid his head on Arthur's shoulder, wrapping his arms around Arthur's body as best as he could when Arthur drew him even closer into the embrace. He ignored the way his erection pressed into Arthur's thigh, knowing that there was no way Arthur wouldn't know it for what it was.

He angled his face briefly to kiss the corner of Arthur's mouth, careful not to linger. And though Arthur didn't so much as open his eyes, Merlin smiled.

He was in Arthur's arms the way he always ached to be, wrapped up just the way he loved, and God it felt beyond amazing.

...

It took a while for Merlin to fall asleep, there were so many thoughts dancing through his mind.

Arthur had kissed him, was holding Merlin so possessively against his body, and it left Merlin confused. Arthur had never kissed him before, had never touched him like this before, like he wanted to, as if he liked doing it. Merlin worried about what it meant. Maybe he was projecting what he wanted and Arthur was trying to make him feel better. That made Merlin even more worried. He never wanted Arthur to do anything Arthur didn't want to do.

But Arthur had kissed him, had seemed to like kissing him as much as Merlin had loved kissing back. And it was Arthur's idea to lie in bed together, cuddled together like they were. Merlin almost didn't want to move. He was so afraid that this was all a dream and he'd wake up on the floor, back where he started, embarrassed and ashamed.

He wanted Arthur too much to see reason anymore. If Arthur wanted any part of him, even if it drove Merlin insane with desire, Merlin knew he would shut up and take whatever he could get. It wasn't as if he hadn't fucked a multitude of nameless people, none of whom meant anything close to what Arthur meant to him. Whatever Arthur wanted, Merlin would gladly give him.

_'Just close your eyes,'_ he told himself, shifting his cheek to Arthur's chest and never wanting to be anywhere else ever again. _'If this is a dream, I don't want to wake up.'_

When Merlin drifted awake he was half pinned under Arthur's body.

He was lying on his back, warm, because where Arthur laid on him there was only heat. Arthur was lying in a reversal of their earlier position, face tucked into the side of Merlin's neck and breathing warm breaths that fluttered across Merlin's throat. Unlike earlier, Arthur hadn't just stopped at resting his head on Merlin. Half his body was draped across Merlin's body, their naked chests stuck together from the heat. Merlin had an arm draped loosely across Arthur's back. Arthur had slipped one leg between Merlin's legs. His morning erection was pressed into Merlin's hip.

It was such an intimate position to wake up to with Arthur that Merlin instantly thought he was still dreaming.

Still, he couldn't help the way his body screamed for him to move, whether away and out of Arthur's embrace, or lower against the thigh perfectly positioned between his legs.

Merlin rocked his hip, half heartedly trying to escape. The friction against his own erection caused a delicious pleasure to rocket through his body. Merlin gasped, biting his lower lip to prevent himself from moaning long and loudly, trying to stop the tiny, involuntary jerks of aftershock as he forced his body under control.

"You're right Merlin. That does feel wonderful to wake up to," Arthur murmured gruffly into his ear. "My turn?"

Without waiting for a response, Arthur wrapped firms hands around Merlin's waist and shifted to better align their bodies. When he was done, Merlin had what he wanted, Arthur's weight pressing him into the mattress, Arthur's heat and smell surrounding him, Arthur's body against his.

Arthur rolled his hips, slowly, deliberately. The moan it pulled from Merlin, had Merlin's fingers scrambling across Arthur's back as he tried to hold Arthur in place. Needing more and never to stop.

_'Please! Please, please, please...'_

It felt so good. Merlin had to stop himself from crying out. Had to stop himself from reaching down to slip his pants off and giving Arthur better access to his body. Anything Arthur wanted, anything to make Arthur feel good too.

He loved Arthur so damn much, and he never thought he'd ever get the chance to show him.

"You like this?"

Merlin couldn't believe that he heard uncertainty in Arthur's voice. It was such a foreign concept to him, that Arthur thought he didn't want him, that Arthur couldn't just tell that Merlin had lived every second since the day they met as children, for this exact moment.

But all he could do was nod, as Arthur established a gentle rocking rhythm, designed it seemed, to drive Merlin insane.

Arthur raised his head until Merlin was looking into storm grey eyes lit by the slits of early morning sunlight that broke past their curtain. Merlin reached up to touch Arthur's cheek, still sure he had to be dreaming. His fingers trembled from the pleasure that sang through him with every gentle thrust of Arthur's hips.

Merlin closed his eyes. It was too much. He couldn't breathe. He never wanted the moment to end.

Arthur immediately stopped moving. Went so still, Merlin felt like he'd been stabbed, the pain of loss was so sharp. His eyes fluttered open, and he watched Arthur look away. Felt Arthur roll off his body to lie beside him on the bed. Merlin clenched his fingers into a fist, having to fight against the urge to grab Arthur and pull him back into their previous position.

"Merlin," Arthur's voice was gruff and soft, as if he was frightened of scaring Merlin. "Remember, I've always said you could tell me no. You can tell me to stop."

Merlin examined the words closely, letting them linger in his mind. Did Arthur really think he didn't want this? That he was forcing himself on Merlin? It was such a ridiculous notion, that Arthur could force this on him when he would beg Arthur on his knees for less than what he just had.

Merlin was so needy, so clingy. If anything, Arthur should be disgusted, not terrified that Merlin didn't want him. Merlin had never had much shame anyway, not about nakedness or sex. And if Arthur wanted him, like he thought Arthur did now, if Arthur was truly going to be okay after how much Merlin had worried about him, this was a ridiculously easy thing to give him. It wasn't as if Merlin didn't know it was all he personally ever wanted.

Merlin slid his hands to the waistband of the pants he had worn to bed, and as quickly as he could, he slipped them off.

Arthur was looking at him, gaze sliding everywhere. Merlin thought he should feel scorch marks on his skin. He smiled, keeping his eyes on Arthur as Arthur's gaze finally shifted to meet his.

He grabbed one of Arthur's arms, guiding Arthur's fingers between his legs. The pressure was good enough to make Merlin moan again.

"If you want me, you can have me. Any time Arthur. I don't give a fuck where. Up against a tree, on a wall, in the middle of a crowded room. Doesn't matter. You don't even have to ask if you don't want to. Just touch me and I'll always be this hard for you, this fast."

Arthur smiled, tightening his hold further as he slowly began pumping his fist. Merlin's whole body jerked with the pleasure. All rational thought fluttered away and his entire world became centred on how good it felt to have Arthur's hand on his body.

"Are you supposed to want this Merlin?" Arthur asked, with narrowed eyes though he didn't break rhythm.

Merlin's thoughts spiralled into confusion. This wasn't anonymous and it wasn't meaningless. It was all he had ever wanted, to have Arthur touch him, have sex with him. But he had wanted other things and they had been wrong, had hurt him, hurt Arthur.

"I don't _know_," he whispered back, torn.

If Arthur said no, if Arthur told him that he couldn't have this, couldn't want this, then Merlin would do what he was told. If this turned out not-good then Merlin would accept that he couldn't have it. Even if it hurt more than anything in the world to leave this bed and leave this man, Merlin would listen.

"If you want it, want me, then I'm yours," Merlin told Arthur. "It's your rules and they've kept me alive and sane so far. If you tell me I can't want it, then I'll listen. Whatever you want Arthur."

Arthur leaned over to kiss Merlin. His mouth tasted so good that when he retreated Merlin whimpered.

"Do you want me?"

Arthur was looking into Merlin's soul again. Merlin squirmed, not knowing if the answer he felt inside beating through his heart was the right answer, the answer he should own up to. But it was the only thing he knew.

"I always want you," he whispered miserably, biting his lower lip as he closed his eyes again, wanting to hide the shame of the confession.

It was true. For all the men he had fucked, it was Arthur he saw. All the times that Arthur had caught him in another man's arms, all the times that Arthur had walked away or told him to leave, or sat across the table ignoring Merlin while Merlin kissed or groped some nameless stranger, Merlin had only tried even harder to show Arthur what he was missing.

Arthur kissed Merlin's eyelids, coaxing Merlin to open his eyes. When he did he felt like he was drowning in Arthur's gaze again. Arthur reached up to slide a thumb across Merlin's lips. It felt so good that Merlin opened his mouth, grazing his teeth against Arthur's finger, tasting with the tip of his tongue.

"I love your mouth. Your pretty lips. I always got so jealous of the men who got to have that pretty mouth of yours wrapped around them. You always looked so good like that. So beautiful, on your knees. I got so jealous wanting to know what all the screaming was for. I want that. Will you do that for me?"

Arthur's words made Merlin shiver. So much of it was what he'd always wanted as well. To hear Arthur moan and cry out because of what he could do. To make Arthur feel loved.

"If it's what you want," Merlin responded quietly. "I'll do anything you want."

Arthur kissed the side of Merlin's neck. Merlin raised his head giving Arthur better access. He was the one who couldn't stop moaning. While he was distracted, Arthur nudged him until he was rolled onto his side. Arthur pulled him backwards until he was pressed against Arthur's body from behind. He could feel the hard bulge in Arthur's pants. As if Arthur could fuck him through the layer of clothes.

Merlin groaned, needing more. Arthur rocked against him, matching Merlin's rhythm with thrusts of his own, pacing the slide of his fist with the grinding of his hips.

"Want to make you come," Arthur whispered into Merlin's ear. "I never got to see you come. "

Merlin wanted that too. His body clenched again and again wanting the penetration that Arthur's teased him with. But Arthur wanted his mouth and if Merlin got what he wanted, to have Arthur buried inside his body, Arthur wouldn't get to come the way he asked.

So Merlin squeezed his eyes shut for a second, gathering the strength he needed to gently pull away from the intoxicating feel of Arthur's body.

Arthur protested with a groan, pressing an open, wet kiss to Merlin's shoulder. Merlin curled back into the kiss, losing his resolve for a moment. Arthur wanted him, wanted to keep touching him, kissing him, licking him. The realization made Merlin giddy with pleasure. But it also made him determined to take Arthur into his mouth and taste him the way Arthur had always wanted.

"You can watch me come later," Merlin breathed, as he turned around and pressed his forehead, his lips, to Arthur's. "Let me take care of you first."

Arthur pulled Merlin even closer, to sweep his tongue across Merlin's neck, to nip at Merlin's shoulder, and then lick the bite. Merlin whimpered. Arthur smiled, and wrapped his arms around Merlin's waist, pulling at Merlin's hips until Merlin was cradled between his legs, their groins pressed together.

"Stop distracting me," Merlin groaned after Arthur pulled him into another long, sensual kiss.

Arthur laughed. "I'm not trying to distract you. I just can't let you go. Want to keep kissing you. God, you fit so well against me."

Merlin groaned again. He was having the exact same problem, not wanting to stop kissing Arthur. So he kept his lips connected to Arthur's body, kissing and licking his way down Arthur's chest, and Arthur's flat abdomen. He pulled off Arthur's pants, and tossed them over the side of the bed, not sparing a second as he returned to his task of tasting every inch of Arthur's body.

Merlin looked up at Arthur, smiling. "Watch me?"

"Fuck if you thought I wasn't going to," Arthur scoffed, already rearranging himself, trying to get a better view.

When Merlin took Arthur into his mouth, Arthur's body bowed, fingers clenched tightly into the sheets, and the keening, gasping sounds he made went through Merlin's body like electricity. This, Merlin knew, was what he was made for. He loved doing this, always had, but sucking Arthur gave him a high like no other.

Every time Arthur moaned or gasped, or cried out, Merlin felt like the sounds were being pulled from his own body. Making Arthur feel good was like being pleasured himself. Merlin felt like his heart, his soul, his body, was connected to Arthur and Arthur's pleasure was directly connected to his own pleasure.

_'Love you,'_ Merlin chanted silently. _'Love you so fucking much.'_

"Fuck!" Arthur moaned, fingers clenched in Merlin's hair. "Fuck. Merlin. So good. Just like that. Don't stop."

Merlin kept his eyes on Arthur, loving the way Arthur's eyes had gone unfocused. Arthur was panting and moaning, and gasping out words that were half incoherent and sexy to listen to and Merlin had no intentions of stopping.

Arthur's hips jerked, though he seemed to be trying to hold still. Merlin would have laughed if his mouth wasn't full. Not wanting to break rhythm for even a second, Merlin grabbed Arthur's hips and roughly pulled at them, trying to convey the message that he wasn't made of glass and could take it.

Arthur picked up on the hint quickly. And Merlin was loving it.

When Arthur's fingers tightened in his hair signifying his impending release, Merlin looked up and caught Arthur's gaze again. Eyes locked, Merlin watched as Arthur shattered, jaw going slack, and groaning long and loud, Merlin's name a keening wail that made Merlin's toes curl in sympathy.

Until Arthur pulled him away, pulled him up his body, and Merlin's lips met Arthur's lips as Merlin rocked against Arthur's body, blinded by desire and his ache for release.

"It's okay baby. Let me," Arthur soothed.

Arthur pressed his hands between their bodies, wrapping his fingers around Merlin's length. Merlin whimpered, buried his head in Arthur's shoulder, squeezed his eyes shut, and gave over to Arthur's ministrations. Trusting Arthur to make him feel good.

It didn't take more than a few tugs before Merlin's body slammed into orgasm. He came with soft sobs of pleasure, while Arthur cradled him and soothed him through it all. And Merlin just clung to him, never wanting the moment to end, never wanting to ever have to let go.

Merlin let the silence they fell into stretch on for a few minutes before finally he pulled away to look at Arthur. Arthur looked worried. Cautious. As if he was expecting the worse to follow.

Merlin felt his heart clench.

"What?" he asked, voice radiating pain he couldn't hide. Not after what they'd just done. "Do you regret it already?"

Arthur reached across to slide his fingers through Merlin's hair, searching Merlin's face for something that Merlin didn't know if he had an answer for. Merlin wanted to hide, to cry, to retreat to the corner of the room and break.

"I'm waiting for you to walk out," Arthur responded.

Merlin's mind boggled at that.

"Walk out?" he asked. "What? Why would I? I want to stay. With you. Unless you want me to leave."

Arthur pulled him back close long enough to kiss him. Merlin drowned in the kiss for as long as it lasted, hating when Arthur stopped to sigh, and to speak again.

"I get to look Merlin. I don't get to touch. Now that you've let me touch you, I'm waiting for you to pull away."

Merlin did pull away at that.

He rolled away from Arthur, climbed out of the bed and stood looking down at Arthur. Naked and beautiful. Merlin stared into Arthur's eyes, and he couldn't make sense of Arthur's words.

"You were always welcome to touch me," he finally said quietly. "Any part of me, any part of my body, any time you wanted. Fuck Arthur it's all I know. You could look. I loved that. But the second you touched me Arthur, I would never want anyone else. Just like I only want you now."

Arthur sat up in the bed quickly.

"No. I could look and I could save you, but I'm not supposed to be the one to take advantage. You need me for more than sex. I want to be more than someone you fuck because you miss having someone inside you."

Merlin thought about that. If it were anyone else but Arthur saying the words he would have been seriously pissed. But coming from Arthur he knew what the words meant. Knew that he had to seriously take a moment to think about it.

Merlin slowly, carefully, made his way around to Arthur's side of the bed. Arthur watched him, and Merlin tried not to break eye-contact. When he was near to Arthur again, Merlin dropped to his knees at the side of the bed. He reached out to take Arthur's hands in his.

"You idiot," he whispered. "You could never, ever, be just another warm body in my bed. You could never take advantage. Never be a regret. I want you like I want air. My body has always been yours to do whatever you want. Touch me, fuck me, hold me, push me away. I want you. I want to be near you. I mean what I said. Anything you want Arthur. If you think it's better if we never have sex again then we won't. If you just want to keep me safe and lock me in a glass case, then I'll let you. I'll do whatever you want, whenever you tell me. I belong to you."

Arthur pulled him up, pulled him to his feet, then back onto the bed, cradling Merlin against his body. He ran his finger over the ring that dangled at Merlin's chest.

Merlin felt the caress like a brand into his skin and he squirmed, aching for more and more, as his breathing hitched. Merlin tucked his head under Arthur's chin, pressing a kiss to the base of Arthur's throat in a gesture that he hoped Arthur understood.

"Mine then," Arthur murmured, stroking Merlin's hair.

Merlin moaned in agreement. He wrapped his arms around Arthur's waist, and pressed against Arthur's body. He fit against Arthur's body, fit in Arthur's life, and he didn't plan on it being any other way. The only way he was ever leaving Arthur's side again was if Arthur ordered him to go.

And he was going to make damn sure that never happened.

.

xxx...TBC...xxx


	4. Chapter 4of4

**Warning: **_AU (modern), language, substance abuse, graphic imagery  
><em>

**Pairing: **_Merlin/Arthur_

**Rating: **_R_

**Inspired by: **_One Real Thing__ by Anah Crow and Dianne Fox_

**Summary: **The course of true love never did run smooth. Arthur and Merlin knows this all too well.**  
><strong>

**Author:** _Spirit_

**A/N:** Final chapter! Chapter has been edited to comply with rating. For the full NC-17 version visit my LJ. Please be warned that this isn't your typical Merlin/Arthur fic. The relationship is and will be shown to be somewhat different from the usual. It isn't disturbing, just different. All I ask is that you'll give it a chance and hopefully, by the end, you'll understand it and enjoy reading the fic as I've enjoyed writing it.

* * *

><p>.<p>

**ALL THE COMPLEXITIES**

.

.

_Take a leap like the world's not there.  
><em>

_We get tangled in our words...  
><em>

_Love is a dare._

_Boys Don't Die__ by Rich Jacques_

_._

.

_For _**Merthur Dreamer**_, who made writing this fic an absolute pleasure to share._

_._

_.  
><em>

_.  
><em>

_**Part Four**_

.

Merlin was still asleep when Arthur woke again and Arthur was glad.

Arthur knew that Merlin needed the rest. The past few days hadn't been easy for either of them, but for Merlin it had been a non-stop whirlwind of being in constant motion. Although Arthur loved that Merlin focussed so intensely on him, it made him worry as well. Merlin had the ability to never stop until he fell unconscious from exhaustion, but Arthur didn't want that for him.

Arthur stared down at Merlin's sleeping figure while he ran gentle fingers along Merlin's cheek, caressing Merlin's lips. He wanted to press his mouth against every inch of Merlin's body, because it was still so surreal to know that he could now.

Always could, Merlin had said.

Arthur tightened his arms and pulled Merlin even closer, drowning in Merlin's scent and the way Merlin felt so good pressed against his side. It felt insane how much in love he was with this man.

Arthur had loved Sofia, in a different way. He had been committed to her, would never have even considered being unfaithful to her. He had sworn to spend the rest of his life with her, and he would never have gone back on those vows, despite what she thought.

But the way he loved Merlin, there was no comparison. The way he loved Merlin was consuming, blinding, terrifying, in its intensity. And it never went away, was always burning in the corner of his heart reserved for keeping Merlin safe and healthy.

He had thought the way he loved and cared about Merlin was tied in with his concerns of keeping Merlin alive, and that once he got Merlin on the right track that his feelings would fade. But it hadn't. Seeing Merlin happy, and successful, and healthy, and safe, had made Arthur's heart swell with pride. Had made the fire burn stronger, brighter, and he knew that he would always feel this way.

"I love you," Merlin whispered softly, against Arthur's neck. "I didn't say it earlier and I don't want you to think that what we did meant nothing."

Arthur was surprised. He hadn't realized that Merlin had awoken. He felt a little guilty, but since it was already mid-morning, it made sense that Merlin wouldn't sleep for long.

He bent to kiss Merlin's lips gently at first, but then Merlin gasped and quietly moaned into the kiss, and it deepened into something hungry and needy. Arthur found he could only go along for the mind-blowing ride, pulling Merlin onto his body, lacing his fingers through Merlin's hair, and wanting, needing more and everything, and not wanting to stop.

"When you kiss me like that," Arthur groan, finally wrenching his lips away from the intoxicating taste of Merlin's mouth. "How could I ever think you don't mean all of it?"

Merlin shrugged. He was lying on top of Arthur looking down, biting his lower lip, his cheeks were red, and he couldn't seem to hold Arthur's gaze.

"You looked like you were thinking about her," Merlin said quietly. "I thought I should point out that I know I don't compare, but I love you, and I always have. I'm sorry. I wish I wasn't so used, so second-hand. I wish I was better for you, like she was better. If I had known, had thought for a second that you wanted me, I would have tried harder to deserve you."

Arthur didn't know what to say to that. There were no words. All he could do from now on was to show Merlin that they could deserve each other.

"You're the one in my bed, the only person I ached with wanting to be here," he pointed out, reaching across the space to touch Merlin's chin. "You're the most important person in my life and I want you to stay right here with me all the time."

Merlin looked away, then ducked his head. He hid his face in Arthur's shoulder, and he was shaking the way Arthur knew he did when he got too emotional and was trying hard to contain himself.

"I mean it," he murmured, stroking Merlin's hair and the rigid line of Merlin's back. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you. It's what I always wanted, even when I was married and knew it was wrong to want you with me, so damn much. I couldn't make myself stop. I couldn't make my heart let you go. So tell me, you want to be with me too."

"Arthur," Merlin whimpered, as if it was killing him to hear the words, the request, the promise in Arthur's words, and Arthur wanted to take it back, but he couldn't. He couldn't spare them this, the truth, finally spoken aloud between them.

"Ask me again, when you mean it," Merlin whispered, still hiding away. "When you're better. When you're not on another continent and your whole life, your whole world, isn't somewhere else, safe, away from all the shit I cause you."

"Damn it!" Arthur growled.

He flipped them over, reversing their position, rolling onto Merlin's body, until Merlin was pressed into the mattress, legs wedged between Arthur's legs, and their body aligned so that Arthur could feel every breath that Merlin took, even as Merlin's body trembled.

Looking into Merlin's big beautiful blue eyes, all the irritation and anger disappeared. All those people who had never wanted Merlin, who had only wanted to use him, had made Merlin like this, Arthur knew. Everybody dying, or leaving or wanting someone better, it had done this, and Arthur knew that when he left he had caused pain as well. All he could do was hope that time would heal the wounds.

"I'll call Gwaine and have him ring the office. I'll have someone arrange a flight for us out of here tomorrow morning. I only want to be with you and I mean it. If you need me to be somewhere else to prove this to you, then I'll do it."

Merlin's eyes widened in fear."No! I can stay if you want to stay. I believe you."

"No you don't yet, but you will. I want to keep you. I swear I do, and I'll show you every day if you let me."

Arthur bent to kiss Merlin again and again and again until Merlin stopped shaking and was moaning and gasping in his arms, as they rocked and slid their bodies together. Until he could see the doubt and the fear being swallowed by only that soft endearing look in Merlin's eyes that Arthur knew meant that Merlin had no more sad thoughts to distract him.

He would have carried on, ruthlessly wiping away everything but desire and the promise of forever until Merlin surrendered, but they were suddenly interrupted by the ringing of Merlin's mobile.

Arthur cursed out loud, and Merlin calm and happy again, smiled at him. Arthur snagged the phone from Merlin's grasped, rolling off and away from the intoxicating pull of Merlin's body. When he did, Merlin shrugged, sat up in the bed, kissed the back of Arthur's neck, then made his escape to the bathroom.

Arthur lost a few seconds of his life watching Merlin's beautiful, retreating backside, before he remembered that he had a phone in his hand.

"You have shit timing," he snarled. "Though I was just thinking about ringing you."

"Nice to hear your cheery voice mate," Gwaine responded, in a gratingly happy voice.

Arthur grunted. Gwaine laughed.

"Did he help? It sounds like he helped."

Arthur took a moment to consider what to say. If it was Morgana the details would be begged for and Arthur would listen to her analyse this new step in his relationship with Merlin, to death. But it was Gwaine, and details may not be appreciated.

"Thank you for sending him to me," Arthur finally responded softly. "I know that it was you who did it, even if it was Morgana who told him the truth about me and Sofia."

Instead of denying this, instead of sounding embarrassed or even apologetic, when Gwaine spoke again it was in a serious, level voice, so rare that Arthur was surprised.

"I use to wonder about the two of you," he said. "I didn't get it. I know you're his best friend and not me, but I care about him a lot too. I see the way he is with you and the way you are with him, and I didn't understand because you make it look so natural, so simple, like you don't even know what you do to each other."

Arthur felt his skin burn as he realized what Gwaine knew, even as he thought about how it felt to have Merlin on his knees at the side of his bed, asking ever so sweetly to take care of Arthur.

"And it isn't weird?" he asked.

Gwaine laughed. "It's weird as hell! But it's how I knew he needed to find you. You weren't going to get better with me or Morgana or Gwen or Lance or anyone else. Just Merlin. He needs you like you need him. The rest of us, we don't talk about it, but yeah, we know how it is with the two of you. So don't think you have to hide it, because that would be even weirder for us."

Arthur hid his eyes with his hand and wondered if he could do that, if this was what Merlin meant earlier. Could he do everything he always did in private to protect Merlin, when the world and their friends were watching and knowing. They didn't need their relationship to be misunderstood. And he wondered if they would be judged by others' standards.

"I only know how to love him the way I love him," Arthur said. "And I've never loved him like it was easy. I don't think I could reduce us to easy anyway."

On the other end of the line Gwaine smiled and Arthur heard it reflected in his voice when he spoke.

"Then I did good, and now you owe me."

Arthur rolled his eyes but he reluctantly smiled as well when he spoke, "I don't owe you yet, but I will. I'm coming home. Well, Paris first to see Morgana. Merlin has a life to get back to and I have a business to drop in on. So if you would be so good as to make arrangements for us to fly out tomorrow, I'll be grateful. I'd do it myself but I have plans for the rest of the day."

"Of course you do." Gwaine snickered. "I expect you'll have plans a lot of evenings from now on."

"Fuck off," Arthur told him.

But when Gwaine laughed, happy and accepting with no judgement, Arthur silently thanked the universe for the great bunch of friends and the sister he had, and for Merlin, and for how much they all cared enough to make sure he was okay and getting better after everything that had happened with Sofia.

"Thank you," he whispered into the phone to Gwaine, and to all of them at once.

And then even though he wasn't sure Gwaine even heard, he quickly hung up, embarrassed and blushing and happy, finally, after so many years of just getting by.

...

The shower was still running when Arthur knocked on the bathroom door. He didn't expect Merlin to hear the knock, much less answer, so once he knocked he went ahead and entered.

Merlin was standing under the spray of water when Arthur slipped past the shower curtain.

Arthur reached over to gather Merlin's slim body into his arms, immediately getting thoroughly wet as well, but he hardly noticed. He kissed the side of Merlin's neck as Merlin tilted his head to one side to give him better access. Then he licked at the water that streamed down Merlin's shoulder and arm.

"This is nice," he said into Merlin's ear before kissing that part of Merlin as well.

He slid one hand down Merlin's flat stomach, curled his fingers to very lightly scratch across the smooth, slippery surface. Merlin arched into his arms and gasped a low, needy sound that vibrated though Arthur's body.

"God you feel so good," Arthur murmured. "I can't get enough."

"You feel good too. I'm the one who needs this, crave this. Do you have any idea how much I use to dream that you would touch me like this? I'm so afraid you'll wake up and I won't have this anymore," Merlin countered, even as Arthur pressed against him to belay his fears.

"Not a dream."

Arthur gently coaxed Merlin to turn his head so that their lips could meet, grateful when Merlin responded. Their mouths seemed to collide together, not gentle like their first kiss had started out, not urgent and needy like their others, but hard and desperate as if neither of them could bear to lose the connection. Arthur could already tell that these kisses, Merlin's kisses, were going to become his own addiction.

When they broke the kiss, Arthur rested his head on Merlin's shoulder while Merlin tilted his head back to rest on Arthur's. They stood like that, bodies perfectly aligned again each other, swaying a little, as the water from the shower rained in front of them, drowning out even the sounds of their ragged breaths.

"I could get use to this, if you let me," Arthur whispered into Merlin's ear, above the sound of falling water.

Merlin hummed contentedly but then he sighed. "Are you sure you want this? With me?"

"It's all I want now," Arthur told him, and it was so true it made Arthur's heart hurt. "You're all I want, forever now. Just say you want this too."

Merlin turned in his arms, his cheeks wet and his eyes soft and worried.

"You shouldn't want me," he whispered. "I'm bad for you. I'll mess up one day and it won't be good. I'll stay with you like I use to be around, let you have this, have me any time you want, but you should find somebody to be happy with."

"I'm happy with you," Arthur responded sharply.

But Merlin shook his head, sad and worried, and it hurt Arthur even more.

Arthur cupped Merlin's face between his palms then rested his forehead against Merlin's. He closed his eyes, wanting to fix whatever broken part it was inside of Merlin that wouldn't allow even this bit of happiness. Merlin shivered, and Arthur slipped his hands away to gather Merlin against his body, holding him so tightly there was no room for doubt that this was where Merlin belonged.

"Are you all right?" Arthur asked, opening his eyes as he pulled away only far enough to gaze at Merlin's face, when Merlin's body shook again.

"Yes," Merlin answered, but then he shook his head and couldn't meet Arthur's eyes anymore. "Can we pretend I am?"

"Tell me what you need," Arthur said gently.

Merlin wrapped his arms around Arthur's neck, and pressed a kiss to Arthur's jaw before he slid his lips an inch further to whisper in Arthur's ear.

"Take me to bed," he begged. "Please. Please, Arthur."

Arthur's breath caught.

Merlin had never been like this before about sex. He laughed, made it into a game, made it into a challenge, made it into something that was irresistible and almost inevitable whenever he so much as walked into a room. But he was never like this, never shy and soft and begging and scared that he was asking for something he couldn't yet have.

"All right," Arthur told him, because there was no other answer he could give, not when he wanted it too. "But only if you swear it won't make it worse for whatever is wrong."

Merlin thought about it, then shook his head. "I don't think it will. When I knew I didn't deserve you, no matter how much I needed you, it didn't make any difference wanting you. Making it worse, doesn't matter because you're still too good for me, even now when I'm a little better than I was before."

_'Damn,'_ Arthur thought. _'How do I make this better?'_

He kissed Merlin again, as softly as he could so that his lips barely ghosted again Merlin's mouth.

"I've always wanted you the way you are," Arthur explained. "You're good enough, you've always been. I love you. I love all of you, and I wouldn't change anything."

Arthur took Merlin's hand, slipping it down between their bodies so that Merlin could feel how much he meant what he was saying. Could feel how much he ached and desired and needed Merlin.

"Oh God," Merlin gasped, as he slid his hand away to rub against Arthur's erection. His voice was rough, unsteady and filled with so much need it made Arthur's body burn with desire. "I love you. I love you so damn much. I've wanted you for so long. I need to feel you want me too. I need to feel you inside me, making me all yours. Any way you want. Just please, please Arthur, please take me. Have me."

Arthur pulled Merlin into another kiss, stopping the words as they spilled from Merlin's lips. He slid one hand back into Merlin's wet hair and slowly moved the other down the curve of Merlin's back, to rest on the soft mound of Merlin's ass, holding him in place so Merlin could feel that he wanted what Merlin wanted and that he had no desire to deny any of them.

"There's condoms and lube in the drawer by my bed," Arthur whispered when he could bear to move his lips away from Merlin's again. "Dry off, then go wait for me in there."

Merlin's eyes had gone all sorts of soft, all sorts of beautiful, as Arthur looked at him. At Arthur's words though, he bit his lower lip for a second, then gathering courage, he looked back at Arthur shyly.

"What?" Arthur asked softly.

"I have a paper in my bag that says I'm clean," Merlin said. "I was tested about two weeks ago. I try to get tested as often as I can now."

Arthur slipped away from Merlin, taking the time to gather his own thoughts, as he reached over and turned the shower off. When he heard Merlin behind him fidget in the new silence, he turned around to face him.

Arthur closed the small distance between them, cupping Merlin's face between his palms.

"When was the last time you had sex with someone?"

Merlin briefly closed his eyes. To think. To remember. Arthur wasn't sure, but when Merlin opened by his eyes, Merlin's cheeks were flushed.

"A while," Merlin whispered. Then he cleared his throat, and his voice got stronger when he spoke again. "Maybe, ten months ago. I follow the rules. I'm careful now. I was safe with him."

"Then what are you asking?" Arthur probed gently.

"I want you to trust me," Merlin responded. And he met Arthur's eyes steadily, with no secrets, and no lies. "I don't ever want you to need condoms with me. I've been trying to make sure you never have a reason to any more."

Arthur rested his forehead again Merlin's and waited for the emotions that fluttered behind his ribcage to pass.

Merlin was clean, had been so very careful, and he wanted to be with Arthur. It was a string of realizations that exploded like a firecracker in Arthur's heart. This gift that Merlin was offering, meant more than Merlin knew.

"I'm clean too," Arthur whispered back. "After I found out about Sofia, I've been almost obsessive about being sure."

"So..." Merlin left the question hanging.

Arthur smiled. He leaned away, only far enough to kiss Merlin's forehead, then the tip of his nose, then gently, slowly, he kissed Merlin's lips.

"So go wait in the bed for me. I want to give you what you want," Arthur murmured.

Merlin's eyes were glistening with emotions when he met Arthur's gaze. But his voice was calm, accepting, quiet and obedient, when he spoke.

"Yes Arthur," he said hoarsely.

The realization that this new quality to Merlin's voice, that Merlin had been using only soft sounds in a slightly rough voice since they woke up, was because of earlier, made Arthur's body burn. And he had to fight the urge to grab Merlin from behind and pull him back into a possessive embrace, even as he watched Merlin slip away and into the bedroom.

Merlin was sitting on the bed when Arthur slowly approached him a few minutes later. Merlin's gaze never left Arthur's face, searching it seemed, for reassurance that Arthur was sure it was still okay. Arthur smiled, hoping to soothe the anxiety.

"Come here," he said when he was just a few steps away from Merlin.

Merlin rose in a fluid motion that was all straight lines and beautiful, smooth skin that made Arthur's gut clench and his mouth water with need.

When Merlin was close enough he pulled him into his arms, needing to feel Merlin's body pressed against his, to remember yet again that this time this was real. This time, Merlin belonged only to him, wanted only him.

"I want to touch you, taste you, feel you against me everywhere until I'm burned into your skin. Until I'm all you know. All you remember," Arthur breathed into Merlin's hair and against Merlin's neck.

"Yes." Merlin's voice was breathless, laced with a need that Arthur loved to hear. "Yes. Please Arthur. I want you to make me yours."

"Lie on the bed," Arthur instructed. "On your back."

Merlin did as requested, unfolding on the bed, welcoming Arthur's gaze. Arthur drank the sight in and felt like he could never get enough of how good, how beautiful and pliant Merlin looked like this. Ready and waiting.

Arthur climbed Merlin's body, pressing every inch of himself against Merlin. This was where he belonged, Arthur knew. He never wanted another moment when Merlin wasn't close to him. They fit like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, their souls, their hearts, intricately entwined.

Merlin's eyes were pools of glistening blue, as he leaned up, and Arthur met him half way. Their lips connected and Arthur felt the jolt shoot through his body. He would never, could never, get enough of kissing Merlin, would spend the rest of his life needing Merlin's kiss.

"Want to make you mine so you never forget me," Arthur whispered against Merlin's lips.

"How could I forget you?" Merlin asked in a voice choked with unshed tears. "I will love you for lifetimes."

But Arthur knew that Merlin didn't think he was worthy to spend the rest of their lives as equals, together. All Arthur could do was show him.

Merlin made needy sounds when Arthur kissed his way slowly down Merlin's body. Arthur wanted to kiss him, to touch him, to play with him with his fingers and his tongue. Merlin was his, all his, finally there was no one else.

"So beautiful," Arthur said.

Merlin hissed, raising his knees to give Arthur better access. Arthur smiled. He trailed a finger down the soft skin of Merlin's inner thigh, and listened to the hitch in Merlin's breath.

Merlin opened his legs a little wider, and Arthur dipped his head to slowly lick the hard flesh there, but he didn't take it into his mouth the way he needed to.

Instead, he looked at Merlin, meeting his gaze. Merlin's eyes were wide and unfocussed, his breathing shallow, like he was wasted or high. But Arthur knew that Merlin hadn't taken anything, hadn't had anything to drink, not for a long time. Merlin had followed the rules so carefully and it made Arthur happy.

"You'll be good for me, won't you Merlin?" Arthur questioned. "I don't want you to come until I'm inside you."

"Yes Arthur," Merlin responded. "If it's what you want. I won't come until you tell me to."

God, Merlin was amazing. So calm now. So compliant. Arthur wanted to reward the both of them. It had been so long since he had done this, but doing it with Merlin felt so right.

He explored, licking and swirling his tongue, focussing all his attention on Merlin's responses. Merlin's taste saturated his mouth and Arthur couldn't get enough as he used his mouth and his tongue to chase the taste, tasting everything.

Arthur could feel how much Merlin loved this. Merlin was shivering, gasping, moaning. But there was no desperation, no trying to rush, or to push Arthur to do more. Merlin accepted all of it, trusting Arthur to make it good.

Arthur took his time, pulling out the pleasure maddeningly slowly. But Merlin still didn't come. Arthur was impressed with how incredible, how amazing, Merlin was being.

He reached for the lube that Merlin had left at the side of the bed, lathering his fingers. He teased over the place that he ached to be, circling his fingers over the crinkled skin.

Merlin cried out, a sound that was ripped from somewhere deep inside him.

Arthur could see how much Merlin wanted this. He could feel just how ready Merlin was. He felt every tremor that ran through Merlin's body as Merlin gasped, but Merlin didn't beg, didn't say a word, even as Arthur teased him. He just pulled his legs up more, putting his hands behind them, breath hitching more and more as Arthur's fingers dipped inside him over and over, only to retreat.

"I want this," Arthur told him quietly. "I want in. I always did, and I never thought you'd ever let me do this."

Merlin's breath caught on a ragged sob, "Want it too. Didn't know how to not want it."

The way Merlin opened up, his body accepting Arthur's fingers, pulling Arthur in, was so sensual and so accepting. It was a rush for Arthur seeing Merlin like this.

"You're so good," Arthur praised him.

"I want to be good for you." Merlin breathed. "I want to deserve you."

Arthur curved his body to kiss Merlin's stomach, never losing the slow, sliding rhythm of his fingers.

"I know you want to, and you are. I wish you'd let yourself believe me."

Merlin didn't beg, didn't make demands, he didn't even ask, but Arthur could tell when Merlin reached his limit. He spread his legs, digging his heels into the bed, his breathing seemed to shatter in his throat as he gasped. His cries got sharper, louder, desperate, as if each one was torn from him. His body clenched around Arthur's fingers over and over in waves, holding on as if he couldn't bear to let go each time Arthur pulled his fingers out.

Arthur didn't bother asking if Merlin was ready. This was as good as begging, in Arthur's mind. He was long past the point where he was so hard it hurt and he didn't see any reason to delay any more. Arthur slid his fingers out gently. Then he just lined up, and pushed in with one fluid motion. He held still, letting them both adjust.

Merlin moaned loudly, "Yes! Arthur. Oh fuck, yes."

Merlin reached for him, pulling Arthur deeper, wrapping his legs around Arthur's hips, as if he couldn't get enough. As if, Arthur was everything in his world, and his body was trying to hold Arthur inside forever.

"God, you feel so good," Arthur told him. "So good like this. So good. This is all I want now. Only you, baby."

It was intoxicating, the way Merlin looked, how good he felt, the sounds he made. Quiet at first, he began panting and moaning as Arthur slid in each time. He gasped, and each gasp turned into cries that rose in volume. He knotted his fingers into the sheets, arched his back as Arthur knelt to get a better angle.

Merlin's cries were raw and wild and Arthur loved every sound he made as he listened to the desperate, needy whimpers that mixed in with his own moans of pleasure. And he watched Merlin's face, and couldn't seem to tear his eyes away.

For all the times that Arthur had seen Merlin with other people, for all the times Arthur had walked in on Merlin during sex, Arthur had never seen Merlin like this. Merlin had never been so into sex, never losing control and giving it all up, and taking it, desperate and clingy and wanting, taking all of it willingly. Like Arthur owned him and this was what Merlin had wanted all along.

"I love you," Arthur gasped against the side of Merlin's neck and into Merlin's ear.

He knew that neither of them could last much longer, so he slid his hands between their bodies.

"Come now," Arthur commanded. "Come for me Merlin."

Merlin's body went taut, his body arched as he dug his blunt nails into Arthur's back. He gasped out Arthur's name in a broken sob. Then as incoherent as he had been earlier, as compliant and obedient as he had been, accepting everything that Arthur gave him, now he seemed to find the words that he had been too afraid to say. They spilled from his lips as he found his release, the words a stream of begging and pleading that tumbled out as if Arthur had broken into the most secret place of Merlin's heart.

"Please, please, please Arthur. Please. Oh God, don't stop. Don't leave me. I need you. Always. Only you Arthur. I love you. I love you. I love you so much. Please Arthur, I'll do anything you want. Don't go. Please. Please Arthur, I need you so much."

'_Oh Merlin_,' Arthur thought. '_I've only ever wanted you. Forever now._'

All that need, all that ache that he had caused in Merlin when he went away, even though he had fixed the obvious wrong, it had hurt Merlin. He knew it now like he knew nothing else. This was why Merlin had been afraid to commit to him earlier. This need to be enough for Arthur, had driven Merlin for years. It had helped him to heal when Arthur asked him and it had given him strength through the years they had been apart. But now, now they were so close to finally getting it right with each other, and Merlin was so afraid it couldn't be all true that he had been fighting it. Arthur could see, all this, now.

He couldn't hold back, not after Merlin's words hung between them in their desperation. Arthur grasped Merlin's hips tightly and gave up all control. Merlin watched Arthur, his eyes fixed on Arthur's face as Arthur finally came with a sharp cry. Merlin held him, as if he needed to hold on to Arthur to make sure that this was all real, and as Arthur came down from the high of his release, he could understand Merlin's need.

"I love you," Arthur said again, slowly and deliberately so Merlin could hear every word. Could remember, and hear the truth. "I am completely in love with you Merlin."

Merlin's arms tightened around Arthur's shoulders. He hid his face at the side of Arthur's neck and Arthur felt him tremble as he sobbed and cried in gasping, body jerking tears, and let go of all the doubt and the uncertainty and the pain of thinking that he wasn't enough for the man he loved.

"You had to know, you had to realize how much I love you. I've been in love with you for so long, it's the only thing I ever knew through all our years," Arthur told him.

When the tears stopped, Merlin nodded. He shifted his head so that he could speak against the side of Arthur's face.

"I know," he choked out, sniffling and taking a deep, ragged breath. "After a while I got that you loved me. I just never thought, could never let myself believe, it was in the way I wanted. But I get it. I know now."

Arthur shifted, sliding behind Merlin, he wrapped Merlin into his arms, not caring that they were sticky and sweaty. He curled against Merlin until he was spooning Merlin from behind, their bodies bent and bowing and flowing along each other. His bent knees were tucked into the bend of Merlin's knees and his fingers tangled with Merlin's fingers.

Arthur allowed them the silence to just hold each other, to indulge and relax and take it all in as he tried to calm his racing pulse.

"Will you come with me back to London?" Arthur finally asked, breaking the silence.

"Yes," Merlin breathed. "If it's what you want then it's what I want too."

Arthur kissed the back of Merlin's neck, taking a moment to taste the salty tang of Merlin's sweat there.

"What do _you_ want? Tell me."

Merlin was quiet in Arthur's arms, as if the question had caught him off guard. But his slow, steady breathing, convinced Arthur to be patient and allow Merlin to find the words.

"I want," Merlin began slowly, almost hesitantly. "I want to be with you all the time. Not in an obsessive way, but sure of my place in your life. I want to give you everything, anything you want. I want to be there for the times you laugh and the times you cry. I want to fall asleep in your arms every day of my life from now on and wake up to your kisses. And I want this. You in my bed, pulling you into my body, making love with you, whenever and wherever you want. You don't even ever have to ask. I want to do everything for you, and make you happy and know your every need so that you never have to need or want anything because I'll know and I'll have it ready for you."

Arthur's heart felt like it was going to burst at Merlin's words.

"You're amazing!" Arthur gasped out. "You're incredible and brilliant and perfect in every way for me, and you already make me feel like I can't breathe without you. All of that, I want it too. I never, ever, want to be away from you anymore. I want to wrap you up and be protective and possessive and never, ever, let you go because I don't make sense without you."

"So you'll keep me?" Merlin asked so very softly, as if his whole existence hinged on Arthur's response.

"We'll keep each other," Arthur replied. "We'll be by each other's side and we'll make each other strong. Is that all right?"

"Yes." Merlin's voice drifted back, sure and steady and happy.

Arthur trailed his fingertips back and forth up Merlin's arms, before shifting to tuck strands of Merlin's hair away as he leaned up and over to kiss and kiss Merlin's cheek and jaw and every patch of skin his mouth could reach.

"I love you," Arthur whispered. "I love only you."

Merlin sighed, as a small smile tugged his lips upwards and he turned in Arthur's arms to press his forehead again Arthur's, nose against nose, before allowing their lips to meet in a brief, light kiss.

"I love you too," Merlin replied.

And Arthur knew that for as long as he lived he would never get tired of hearing Merlin say those words.

...

"Hello. This is your pilot speaking. I've just taken the seat-belt sign off so you can now relax, loosen your death grips on each other, take a breath and enjoy the rest of your flight. We're now suitably cruising at an altitude of 40,000 ft. I'm sure somebody will be around to try and feed you soon. I wouldn't recommend the crisps but that's just personal preference. In the meantime, maybe I should mention for the benefit of a certain passenger that this is a 10 hrs. flight to Hong Kong where we'll have a 12 hrs. layover, followed by a 13 hrs. flight from Hong Kong to Paris. I implore you, don't all show your excitement at once."

Arthur who had been chuckling softly at Merlin's increasing anxiety, started to laugh when Merlin shot up in his seat cursing.

"He's just teasing you Merlin," Arthur laughed.

Merlin glared, not so much it seemed at Arthur, but at the private jet and the voice over the speakers representing the pilot flying it.

"Thinks he's fucking funny!" Merlin growled.

Arthur laughed again. "Just be glad he's taken this time out of his life to come and get us. He didn't have to volunteer to use the company jet to flight all the way out here for this."

"He loves flying. He hardly ever gets to do it since he married Gwen. This is a treat for him so don't tell me anything about favours. If anything he fucking owes us for this."

Arthur leaned across the space between himself and Merlin, touching his lips to Merlin's mouth and coaxing the hard lines away. Merlin melted into the kiss, his tense anxiety seeming to fade as he trusted Arthur to make it all better.

Arthur hummed contentedly as he pulled away. He couldn't bear to abandon Merlin's skin entirely, so he got only as far as resting his forehead against Merlin's before he spoke again.

"Hong Kong is nice this time of year. I'm sure we could find something to do with the twelve hours."

Merlin sighed. "It's not the twelve hours layover that has me concerned. I'm better when I have both feet on solid ground. And I wouldn't mind spending a day lying around naked for you to see and want and touch. But that's almost thirty five hours before we get home. Two days in transit!"

Arthur smiled against Merlin's cheek and kissed the sharp edge of a cheekbone and Merlin's temple. Once he started, he couldn't seem to stop kissing Merlin, and Merlin who was always so damn tactile, usually only exacerbated the need in Arthur by leaning and curling into the kisses.

"So go talk to Lance. Once he switches to autopilot he'll be out here anyway. Maybe if you ask nicely, he'll consider calling in a change in the flight plan," Arthur whispered against the shell of one ear.

For all his complaining, Merlin didn't seem to want to move though. He turned his head to kiss Arthur, a move which Arthur thoroughly approved of, and when the kissing started to heat up as it inevitably did with them, Merlin moved his armrest out of the way and climbed into Arthur's arms. Arthur stretched out lengthwise across the two seats when Merlin fitted his body above him, pressing into Arthur as if he craved the contact.

"You feel so good," Arthur groaned between kisses. "God, I love the way you fit against me."

Merlin's eyes were like an ocean as he briefly paused to meet Arthur's gaze.

"That's because this is where I belong. I belong to you now in every way and I'm not wasting any more time not showing you," Merlin said softly. "I love you so much. And when I didn't have you, when I knew you belonged to someone else, it felt like I'd been ripped in two. I never want to live with that feeling ever again."

Arthur laced his fingers through Merlin's hair and pulled him back down into another searing kiss. His tongue, his mouth, his whole body claimed Merlin as his. Arthur wrapped his arms and legs around Merlin's body, surrounding him, as Merlin seemed to want to melt and merge with him.

"I know what you want," Arthur teased, when he felt Merlin's erection pressing into him. "If you're good, when we get home, I'll let you have it."

Merlin was slowly writhing in his arms, as if he wanted to climb into Arthur's body and stay buried there. Which was something Arthur had no problems allowing Merlin to do. At his promise, Merlin looked up with eyes like saucers, pupils dilated to the point where the blue appeared like inky darkness.

"You've never done that before," Merlin gasped. "Are you sure you want me to be your first?"

Arthur laughed gently against Merlin's lips. "My first. My last. My only. All yours, Merlin."

Merlin whimpered at the words, a sound of pure need. Then, he attacked Arthur with his mouth and his body again, curling into Arthur, desperate and incredible, and making Arthur's blood sing with desire to hold him and never let go.

Except, there came the sound of an embarrassed clearing of throat and a stammered interruption.

"Excusez-moi monsieur, vous avez faire un appel?"

Arthur tore his attention away from the beautiful man in his arms to glare at one of only two flight attendants on the jet. Neither of whom he knew, which meant that either they were newly employed at Pendragon Corp. within the years that Arthur was oversees, or they had been especially employed for this flight.

Her French was native Parisian which made Arthur sigh. This meant that he had to respond in kind to her out of polite respect.

She had excused herself and asked if he wanted to make a phone call. Something he had requested the second they stepped onto the jet. Her interruption could only mean one thing then.

"Yes, I would still like to make that phone call," Arthur told her in the melody of her native tongue. "Can I do that now?"

"Oui, monsieur," she answered with a small nod of her head and a shy, embarrassed smile.

Arthur had no idea, he realized, if Merlin understood the rapid conversation or not. Though, it did stand to reason that Merlin had to learn a little of it for his PR job. As soon as the flight attendant beat a hasty retreat however, Merlin peeled his body away from Arthur. It was a process that pulled a low growl of discontent from Arthur, and made Merlin shoot him a quick, naughty, grin.

"I have to use the loo and then I'm going to beat some sense into our pilot. You go make that phone call."

Merlin ran the fingers of both hands through his hair, and looked like he would rather jump out the plane than leave Arthur's side. Arthur wasn't particularly pleased about being interrupted either, so he tilted Merlin's face and softly kissed him again and again, until Merlin moaned desperately, and had to practically jump out of the chair and run, to escape.

Arthur spared a moment to watch Merlin's retreating form, before he sighed, and connected the satellite phone, dialling the familiar number quickly.

Whoever picked up his sister's mobile was clearly not his sister as she said, "Allo? Qui est-il?"

"May I please speak with Morgana Le Fey?" Arthur requested tiredly, using his sister's public name.

"Who is this?" the voice on the other end asked again.

It had been a while since Arthur used his credentials to intimidate anyone, but he was irritated and impatient and Merlin was off being moody somewhere else on the plane, and his sister had some strange, suspicious person answering her personal line, so Arthur took a deep breath and let fly.

"This is Arthur Pendragon, CEO of the Pendragon Corporation and brother to Morgana Pendragon otherwise known as Morgana Le Fey. Now, do you think you can be a little helpful and find my sister please, or do I have to get really serious and start throwing death threats around?"

It didn't take more than two minutes before Arthur heard the phone being handed over, and Morgana's laughter filled the line.

Arthur immediately relaxed, loving when he could catch his sister free and happy. They had spent years being at each other's throats, especially because she had hated their father with a burning passion, but now, they were finally, truly, okay with each other and Arthur enjoyed their brief family moments.

"Well you just scared the piss out of her!" Morgana gasped between laughter.

"Give her a raise on my behalf, or something," Arthur instructed.

There was a flash of silence then a sharp intake of breath and then Morgana seemed to shriek in pure delight.

"Morgana, please!"

"Don't act like it's not my right to be happy to hear your voice you plonker! You coudn't call, you couldn't bloody write, you couldn't take a moment to tell me you weren't fucking dead? Do you have any idea how worried I've been when you just disappeared and no one could get a hold of you? You're my brother. I actually do care if some psycho bitch tries to take you out with her. I never did like her you know."

Arthur smiled through the rant. She'd been worried. It was sweet. It also made him sad to realize that she thought he didn't care enough about her to tell her himself how he'd been doing. It hadn't actually been like that and he wanted her to know.

"I'm sorry little sister," he soothed. "I was..."

But there were so many words that could have filled the end of that sentence. _Sad? Lost? Watching my life, my plans, and all my hard work for how I wanted my marriage to be, die with her_. He didn't know how to say all that without admitting how wrong he had been in choosing Sofia over his heart.

"You were..." She paused too, but then continued. "Waiting. You were waiting for Merlin, because God knows he's the only one who could have helped you."

And wasn't that the truth.

Merlin, with this perfect timing, wound his way back over to Arthur. He stopped and raised an eyebrow when Arthur remained seated the way he had been, sprawled across both seats, phone tucked against his ear as he looked up at the man who had been his whole life and world since he was twelve years old.

Merlin reach down and shifted Arthur's legs open. Then without ceremony he sat between Arthur's splayed legs, back against Arthur's chest, leaning so that his head rested on Arthur's shoulder. He pressed his cheek to Arthur's cheek before gently kissing the corner of Arthur's mouth. Arthur wrapped him up in the arm not holding the phone and curled his legs around Merlin's legs, breathing in the scent and feel of Merlin in his arms.

Merlin sat relaxed and patient. Holding up his fingers, he played with the ring that encircled his middle finger, twisting it from side to side. Just watching him, watching as it caught the light and glistened with each twist, made Arthur's body tighten in response.

"I love you. I love you. I love you," Arthur murmured over and over, this mantra the only one he knew, and now he finally got to tell Merlin, as often as he thought it.

"I love you too," Morgana laughed. "But if it makes you feel better, I'm sure Merlin loves you as well."

Arthur rolled his eyes at how exasperating she was being and how much he missed her, even though he had often flown in to Europe to visit her and do his duties as CEO for the company. And he thought of all the times he hadn't had the strength to ask and she had filled him in anyway on how Merlin was doing. He never told her he loved Merlin, he never told any of his friends, but somehow they all knew and all seemed to be in support.

"Do you mind if we take a detour and stop in Belgium before coming to see you?" Arthur asked her, between light kisses to Merlin's shoulder. "I want to marry him, and I don't know if I can wait."

"Oh shit." There was a pause. Morgana's voice was all choked up on the other end of the line when she spoke again. "You're making me cry and they'll never forgive me for ruining my makeup. Oh God. Of course I don't care if you take a day or a month to be with him. You've just spent years apart and now you're finally getting it right! I'm so happy for you two."

Except she didn't sound happy. Mostly she sounded like she was sobbing and couldn't catch her breath to get the words out. Again, to Arthur, it was touching and sweet.

"Go be beautiful," Arthur said to her when she stopped being happy long enough to take a sniffling breath. "I'll see you soon. And I promise, I'll have my heart with me this time."

Once Arthur hung up the phone, he turned all his attention on Merlin again. Merlin was still playing with the ring on his finger. Arthur knew how much Merlin despised flying, so it didn't take much to see that Merlin needed distractions and this was as good as any.

He dropped the satellite phone and cradled Merlin's body into a tight embrace.

"Say yes," he whispered. "I know we don't need anything official, but I married Sofia when I should have married you. I want to fix that."

Merlin smiled, taking Arthur's hand to entwine their fingers together. Arthur wasn't wearing a ring, but the ring on Merlin's finger meant more than a symbol of love. It was a brand, a promise. It bound Merlin to Arthur in every way possible. Saying wedding vows still wouldn't be strong enough to truly cover all that it meant, but Arthur wanted it anyway.

Before Merlin could respond though, the other flight attendant shuffled over to them. She too wore an expression of utter embarrassment having to interrupt their intimate moment.

"Could I get you something from the bar?" she asked, surprisingly in English, having perhaps learned from her co-worker's mistake. "We keep it well stocked Mr. Pendragon with both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Whatever you and your...guest...would like, I'm sure we have it available."

Merlin smiled at her but offered absolutely no response to her question. Instead, he turned in Arthur's arms, and stretched out on Arthur's body, curling into Arthur's side, tucking his face into the side of Arthur's neck and began to lick and nibble a path to Arthur's ear.

Heat shot through Arthur's entire body and all coherent thought fled at the feel of Merlin's mouth. It took a while for him to remember they had an audience.

"A glass of red wine for me," he breathed out when he could get his mouth to work again. "Just water for him."

"Are you sure, sir?" She looked uncertain, hands fluttering to her hair as she watched them.

Arthur could only imagine what a deliciously sexy sight they made before her, especially Merlin who was lying between Arthur's legs and had slid both hands under Arthur's shirt, trying to touch and taste all that he could.

"I'm sure," Arthur growled, waving her away impatiently.

Once she was gone, Merlin laughed, and leaned up on his elbows on the narrow seats to smile down at Arthur.

"Yes," he said softly. "Yes. Yes. Yes..."

Arthur glared at him, then pulled him down into another of their heated kisses, cutting off the teasing hint to Merlin's voice and the strings of yes. But the acceptance made Arthur's heart soar, and he couldn't help the way he held Merlin just that much tighter in relief.

It took only a few seconds for Arthur to realize that Merlin was shaking.

He petted Merlin's hair, kissing him and soothing him, knowing that Merlin needed to just be held until the wave of emotion and fear and whatever else that drove these moments, passed.

"You're okay," Arthur said. "I'm here. I have you."

Merlin slid down Arthur's body, curling and arching his back, almost kneeling in Arthur's lap. He nudged his head under Arthur's chin, like a puppy needing to be safe, and he pressed a kiss to the base of Arthur's throat, in a sign of submission that made Arthur's chest ache.

"I love you," Merlin said hoarsely, still not meeting Arthur's eyes. "Only you for so long. I don't want it to be any other way."

Arthur shifted his head away, and tilted Merlin's chin up until they were looking into each other's eyes. Silver and sapphire. Arthur knew he wanted nothing more than this for the rest of eternity.

"It won't be any other way," Arthur assured Merlin gently. "I want to keep you forever. You belong to me now. No one else, ever again."

"Yes Arthur," Merlin breathed.

And it was all Arthur needed to hear, because nothing else mattered except how much he loved Merlin and how good they would be together for the rest of their lives.

.

xxx...The End...xxx


End file.
